


Forty-Nine Days

by Ladybmorebelle



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Comfort, Havensyfy, Multi, OT3, snuggles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 24,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybmorebelle/pseuds/Ladybmorebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Audrey has forty-nine days to live. This is how she spends them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 48

**Author's Note:**

> Season three of Haven brought a lot of new challenges - including a time limit for Audrey. I wanted to flesh out what must have been a difficult experience for all of the characters, especially Duke, Audrey, and Nathan but with one goal: everything which happens in the show stays the same, and every day in-universe is accounted for. 
> 
> Some fluff, some angst, and a lot of love.

She had thought they were barbarians. 

They were dogs. 

Audrey fed that thin, naked man cookies and there was something in the back of her mind, some small voice that said "solve" - but it wasn't solving that she wanted. The nasty truth of the deep corners of her soul was a simpler and yet massively more complex word, "love." 

Love, and be loved. 

She had never known the kind of love that that little boy had for his dog - problem-solving, like feeding times and shots, was in there, but so was the comfort of a warm body and soft eyes and someone who needed her just as much as she needed him. 

She gave Cookie away. Occasional strands of his fur cropped up in her apartment, the clinks and laughter from the Gull filtering through dander on her socks and on the scar on her foot. The night she sent Cookie to a better home, she poured a glass of wine - stolen, no doubt, by her pirate landlord, and somehow so much more delicious - and picked her almost-dog's hair from the folds of her couch. 

How much had Cookie shed? Ten strands? Twenty? 

Forty-nine? 

She cupped her fingers around one bit of fluff, blew it away, out the window and into the water.

Forty-eight. 

The forty-eighth day she spent running her fingers along her body and marveling in her capacity to feel. Another glass of wine, Duke's low chuckle from downstairs, and her naked body in front of an open window facing out to the sea. Every inch of her tightened and released, merlot and goose flesh and the horrible thought that maybe, even though she could feel herself, she wasn't really there.


	2. 47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they go fishing.

Down for drinks on day forty-seven - or rather, French toast, savory with herbs and butter, and a tall glass of tomato juice and forgetfulness. 

"I have to admit, I'm flattered that you like my cooking so much."

Duke stood behind the bar, pulling crates of imported key limes and Russian vodka over the glossy wood. 

"I'm not surprised, though." A smirk, more playful than pointed. "I'm pretty fantastic."

She was about to make some pithy retort - as soon as she could tear her lips from her breakfast and her eyes from the hollow of Duke's throat, but - 

"Don't know about that."

She didn't have to turn, didn't have to move one muscle, because from the first time she sniffed the essential oils on his desk and heard him identify flowers by their fragrance she knew, she always knew, what he smelled like. She had wanted to share in that with him - with her laconic partner who could golf and coo at babies but could never feel clubs or balls or tiny toes with his hands. He could walk into any room and she would know where he was standing, just by his scent - some combination of her training at Quantico and her instant desire to fit into his troubled life. 

He always smelled of cold sunshine. 

"Now, boys, it's too nice a day to get into a hissy," a short laugh from Duke, a slight choking noise from Nathan, "Come here, partner, and eat with me."

Duke stretched out his back and she tried not to notice the firm skin above his linen pants. She glanced at Nathan instead who was looking very intently at the floor. 

"Yeah, I guess I'll cook for him. Nathan? Waffles? French toast?"

She could almost see Nathan rolling his eyes, but he just said what they knew he would - 

"Pancakes."

Duke made some gesture between a stretch and a shrug. 

"All the things I could do for you, Nate. Different flavors, colors, aromas - something you could feel with the taste receptors of your tongue, and I could --"

"Pancakes."

Duke turned towards the kitchen. Nathan looked like he was fighting some kind of internal war; he stared after Duke's back.

"Blueberry."

She loved catching him like this - Nathan, the closet hedonist. He was probably starved for sensory input, frankly, and when he let go and went after it... The corner of his mouth which held secret smiles relaxed. She thought about Cookie and his easy grin and wanted to bury her face in the stubble of Nathan's cheek. 

"Any cases today?" Audrey turned to him as he folded his long legs around a barstool. 

"Nah. Just -" and he raised his voice "- parking tickets."

A muttering voice from the kitchen, "So just simple harassment for you today. Great."

They shared a glance, some spark of humor. She looked away first and smiled into her Bloody Mary. 

"Looks like you weren't up for it today." He wrapped his fingers around the stalk of celery in her glass, somewhere between too delicate and too rough. 

"Oh, I'm up for it," and she neatly forked a piece of toast, gesturing, "But maybe no more barbarian-dogs. Or secret past lives. Or the Teagues."

"Nothing normal then."

"Nothing Haven normal," she knew it wasn't polite to talk and chew at the same time, but it was Duke's cooking and she did it anyway, "But maybe something normal normal. Bird watching. Moose museum --"

"Farm."

"-- going. Fishing."

Nathan was still holding the stalk of celery, most of it bright red from Duke's blend of tomato and cayenne. Almost without thinking he put the end in his mouth - the kind of nervous habit one would cultivate with a favorite pen. Maybe he didn't know, then, that he was greedily sucking on the salt and acid mix of clam juice and vodka. 

Yeah, closet hedonist, she thought, and she sipped at her drink and tried not to giggle. 

"Did somebody say fishing? 'Cause you know I'm --" 

Something about the look on Duke's face, coming through the kitchen door, his arms laden with blueberry pancakes and maple syrup, should have been more of a surprise. His dark eyes when he looked at that poor stalk of celery were obvious and honest and thank God, she thought, that Nathan didn't see, and how the hell could he have missed it?

Nathan slurped, just a little. 

Duke swallowed, caught her looking, looked up, smiled. 

Huh. She always thought - her and Nathan, or her and Duke. Not - well. 

Whatever. Forty-seven and counting down. 

"Fishing," she said around a mouthful of toast, "Would be excellent."

His eyes were back to that guarded sparkle, and he said, "Think we can convince Officer Harassment here to come with us?"

"Crocker --" a slight growl, a warning.

"Yep. And I know how."

And then they both looked at her, her boys, her would-be lovers if she just had more time, her best friends. She threw back the rest of her Bloody and grinned. 

"Duke, we need those pancakes to go." 

**********

A cooler of beers and an evidence baggie of bait later, they were off. So were some of their clothes - Duke was down to those drawstring pants, Nathan had taken off his jacket, and she had made a firm decision not to give a fuck about skin cancer (or modesty) and was lounging comfortably in an oversized button down shirt, semi-respectable boy shorts, and nothing else. 

"Audrey - not caring about sunburn?"

Duke looked over Nathan's head as he passed her a beer and she could see it in his eyes, her time limit, and that Nathan didn't know. 

"Not today."

"Where did you get that shirt?"

Duke's way of stopping himself from laughing, just enough so you knew he was laughing at you, was unparalleled. 

"First new item of clothing I got in Haven." 

"Sentimental value, you would say." 

She looked up and Duke and didn't know whether to shush him or cling to him and cry. 

"Yeah."

They were so different - Duke took her partial nudity as a pleasant banality, whereas Nathan was digging in to his pancakes and possibly stabbing himself in the mouth with his fork. 

She didn't care. 

She didn't care. 

Except she saw what Nathan didn't see, which was for as much as Duke was casual and appreciative about her exposed skin, he was careful and composed about his lingering glances on the back of Nathan's neck, or on the wiry muscle of his arms. 

Nathan must have decided to get over the length and softness of her legs, because he pushed away his plate of pancakes - empty - and started digging around for the bag of bait. 

"Can't lick your fingers now."

Eye roll. 

He got his line set up, the miserable worm bisected by the hook. 

"Not using the Chief's Red reel today?" 

That was something she envied, their past - having a past at all. Nathan had told her about his dad's iconic Red reel from the '60s, even shown it to her once when she went looking for files in the bottom drawers of his desk. But Duke had been there, camping trips, growing up stuff, and even though it hadn't been perfect there had always been a them and probably always would be. Shared history. 

What was that like?

She considered picking out a worm and hooking one herself, but for once in this chilly town the sun was warm, her legs were bare, she had sunglasses and beer and she was not going anywhere other than on this boat, on this couch, feet propped up, eyes hidden so she could watch them both and pretend. 

Duke had settled in next to Nathan, his tanned shoulders next to Nathan's tight, narrow musculature. His linen pants had slipped down, just a little, when he sat, and she could see how parts of him curved and parts angled like lines of lifting and carrying and bearing something internal. His eyes were on the water, and that's why he couldn't see Nathan's arm tense with the anticipation of a touch which would never come. 

His whole body was so hungry. 

Duke knocked his elbow into Nathan's ribs, very hard, said something low. 

Nathan shoved him out of the boat. 

Day forty-seven, she thought, and soon there will be no more days. She slipped off Duke's shirt, her undies, ran straight for Nathan - 

"Oh God, I can feel you against my back --"

\- and toppled them both into the water. 

Nathan couldn't feel the ocean but he could taste it - he spit out a mouthful of saltwater, normally impassive face screwed up between shock and disgust. 

And then something else. 

"Are you naked?!"

"Yep!" Two voices. Audrey saw linen cord sinking to the bottom of the harbor, just about the same time that Duke's smirk turned into an expression of delight. 

"Officer Parker. I approve."

Nathan continued to spit and sputter and he somehow still had all his clothes on but it was okay, because he was there, still there, not swimming away. Audrey floated up on her back and closed her eyes, naked, but still swimming. She heard splashing, turned her head. 

"Shut up, Nate, just --"

And as Nathan tried to grab Duke before he could splash again, the cut on his thumb from the fishhook - which of course, he hadn't felt - brushed against Duke's collarbone. 

Duke's eyes flashed silver blue, pained, impossibly energized, and bright with self-loathing. Nathan tensed, always ready for a fight with his oldest and most complicated friend. 

What the hell, she thought, and swam over to Duke. She put her arms around his neck, even as he shuddered away from her. 

"Don't touch me! I don't want to be like this. I don't want you to see --"

What the hell. 

"Duke," and she kissed the spot behind his ear, "Let's see how far you can throw me."

The pressure in his eyes broke like a storm off the coast, wet and raw and inevitable, and he lifted her up, his thumbs so close to her breasts, and it was almost like crying. 

As she sailed through the air, naked and golden and trying to fly as far away from Haven as possible, she heard Nathan swim over to Duke and whisper, 

"I'm sorry." 

When her body hit the water it hurt, she could feel it, and maybe she was real after all. 

It somehow just - wasn't awkward, back on the boat, with the sun going down and the three of them not really talking. It was less strained, even; they'd all dried in the sun, Nathan claiming a pair of Duke's linen pants, Audrey buttoning herself back into Duke's shirt, Duke in a pair of shorts and one of his heinous sweaters. Sunset, and Nathan was still trying to fish, while Duke had given up entirely and started making Irish coffee with his smuggled whiskey and dark roasted beans brewed in his French press. And she - she was just there, body quietly aching from the fall, hands reaching out on either side of her to Nathan and Duke. 

The sun went down. Forty six days. 

Those days were getting better.


	3. 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What she thinks about when she falls asleep.

She should have been more disgusted by the lumps of lung on the ground, but it was Haven doing its Haven thing, and she already felt like parts of her were on the ground too, her heart ejected by the look on Nathan's face when she pushed him away. 

Forty six days, and then nothing would be left of her - lungs, heart, friendship, love. 

The case was urgent, of course, maybe more urgent because it seemed to be catching. When they found Tommy over the second body it clicked with her - how many lives she might not be able to save, this time. 

And Nathan - Nathan kept on going, doggedly working the case, and wasn't that what she wanted? 

She always had so much hope, before. A belief in herself, some faith that she could get it all done, fix it all. Now, watching victim after victim get sick and commit murder, she wondered if there was any point to it all. 

So when she asked Duke for help it seemed inevitable. And when she found him back at the Gull, drinking alone, she tempered her urge to beg his forgiveness and wrap herself around his hunched, drunken form with the knowledge that she did what had to be done, and he did too. 

Upstairs, taking off her clothes, she felt the memory of Duke's hands on the boat yesterday, the incredible force with which he tossed her away and the calluses of his thumbs. She thought about Nathan's pale torso as he sat fishing, legs almost too long for Duke's pants, rib cage a little too visible because eating must be so damned difficult if you don't know when you're chewing your food or chewing the inside of your cheek. 

She tucked herself into bed, under three layers of quilts, cold and alone. 

When she was little - no, when the real Audrey was little - and couldn't sleep, she'd imagine her mom in bed with her, reading her a story or just hugging her the ways moms are supposed to do. Well, she was too old for that, and if she ever had a mother it was probably a long time ago, before Audrey Parker or Lucy Ripley or any other woman who came to Haven and didn't remember who she was. 

So she thought about Duke, and she thought about Nathan. 

Nathan at her back, the length of him pressed close to her so that he could feel every inch, her curves and lines and the bumps of vertebrae. His arm over her waist. 

Duke, on his stomach, head turned so he could see her and hand curled up between them, still nervous about touching Nathan but trying to, anyway. 

And she, their Audrey, like a live wire between them, a magnet and a guttering flame which they kept alive with their breath. A bridge so they could touch; a way for them to forgive each other. 

She was alone - she could be selfish. She could have them both. 

She heard Duke washing up downstairs, the indelicate clinks of bottles and glasses. 

She fell asleep counting down the breaths of their phantom lungs, the beats of their absent hearts, and her dwindling days.


	4. 45

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when she goes to therapy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Claire seems pretty limited in the show - I think she deserved a second chance to be an astute, attentive therapist, rather than just a plot point.

Therapy was fucking useless because she knew she needed it.

Claire seemed like a nice enough girl - but that's what she was, a girl. How could she possibly understand the intricacies of the situation, the impossible pull of time and the human relationships which were doomed to fail? How could Claire ever look at Audrey as anything other than troubled, as a victim, when Audrey felt not only victimized but the aggressor, the center and cause of the troubles and of heartbreak?

Claire was pretty, perky, attentive, and clueless. 

Going through the motions with therapy was easy - she knew she had to be there, so she dragged up her false memories of social worker visits and trips to new foster homes. She'd had all the tests, the calm questions and prompting, and she knew the answers which indicated, okay, but not happy. 

She could deal with not happy. The okay part, she hadn't gotten to yet. 

Claire was brassy brunette all the way, and her lips were soft and fuller than Audrey's, and she seemed too young to know as much as she did. Audrey tried to focus on the questions and on her practiced answers, trying to get it over with as soon as possible. 

"And your relationship with your partner? Detective --"

"Nathan." She was listening, she was, and she wasn't thinking about the feeling of the two invisible bodies upstairs, pressed against her in the dark and two hands coiled on her breasts. 

"Nathan," and Claire smiled, maybe thinking she had forged some bond of familiarity, "Your partner. How is he dealing with your situation?" 

"My situation." Let her squirm, she thought - let her struggle with the concept of forty-five days and too few choices. 

"Yes," Claire shifted in her seat, the hem of her narrow pencil skirt riding up by half an inch, "Forty days doesn't seem like enough for him, does it?"

"I don't know what he has to do with it," and, almost as an afterthought, "It isn't enough."

"Not for you, either?"

"Not for me, no - and not for Nathan, and not for my friends, and not for my fucking landlord --"

"Duke. Duke Crocker."

"Yeah," and there was a part of her, some wet naked part, that was a touch hysterical, "Not for anybody."

And Jesus, she had underestimated this girl. 

"What do forty days mean to you, Audrey?"

She hoped that Claire didn't notice how she tilted her head when she was uncomfortable, how eye contact was such a struggle when she was exposed and not fixing things, not helping other people. 

"This time I have left? I'm going to help people."

"Do you really think you're going to save Haven?"

"I'm going to do my damned best." 

"Even when you die?"

And then Claire was silent, still perky, still glinting with steel-eyes and that therapist way of getting to the fucking point too soon. She wished that she had picked a different place - something more reserved, not the Gull at half past eight with beers and the hum of crickets. Not right under her apartment, where last night she had turned to the ghost-flesh of the two people she would miss most. 

If she would remember them at all. 

She hadn't realized that she was tearing at the label of Nathan's favorite craft beer, rolling up balls of paper between her fingers. Casually - too casually, she saw Claire notice - she flicked a piece of label off the dock. 

"Thanks for this," she stood, tucking an errant wisp of hair behind her ear, "I'm glad you helped me get it out of my system."

"Get what?" Claire sat there, still calm and brassy, as Audrey tried to run away.

"You know, Haven stuff."

Audrey placed her hand on the rail to the stairs up to her apartment. All of those social workers, all of those home visits and the okays and the uh-huhs and the yes ma'ams, should have prepared her for this. Her fingers ached from fidgeting and the soles of her feet were hot. 

"And it's forty-five days, actually." Her voice was hard, low, and barely emotive. 

Claire picked up Audrey's bottle of beer, took a delicate swig. 

"I know."


	5. 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they go to the moose museum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Audrey had to visit the moose at some point.

She wasn't hungover when she woke up, but then, she supposed she had to be real, had to be a real person with history and alcohol tolerance and memories of frat parties in order to get hungover. 

Forty-four days. 

Her bed seemed so damned empty when she rolled over to check her phone, no Nathan or Duke living behind her closed eyes the way they did in the dark. Her hands found the places where their heads would be and she wanted her sheets to be warm with the smell of winter sunshine and salt water.

Somebody was already moving around downstairs, and her glance at the phone revealed a text from Nathan, two words - 

"Moose museum."

And then a quick buzz.

"(Farm)"

A smile, a stretch, and maybe another half-smile. Only Nathan could get her out seeing the sights, and as she placed her feet on the floorboards she thought maybe she should wear her boots. No knowing what she might step in. 

She turned the water all the way to hot in the shower, skin darkening with pink flush, and she performed the routine she had started when she heard the news - her fingernails scraping against her scalp, thumbs trailing down her neck, palms across her breasts and stomach, the perfunctory check of her pubis and upper thighs, a slight bend to touch her toes. 

I'm here, she said with her skin.

I am here. 

No clean towels, so air drying by the window which faced out to the harbor. Jeans, socks, boots. 

Her phone buzzed again, Duke this time, "Get down here, Officer Parker."

No bra. Button down shirt. Inner pants holster and her backup Swiss Army knife, just in case. 

As she went down the stairs to the Gull she heard something entirely unexpected - two voices, both laughing, both unabashedly honest in the early morning light. She peered around the corner into the doorway and saw their bodies, heads tilted slightly towards each other, and a plate of pancakes with strawberries and cream. 

Duke looked like he wanted to upend the pancakes on Nathan's head and lick behind his ears. 

Nathan looked like he wanted to be licked. 

Was that what it felt like, then, to be replaced?

"My boys," and she stepped into the Gull, "What do you have planned for today?"

"Officer Wuornos here has decided to forgive some overdue parking tickets --"

"For today."

"-- and is letting us have a little fun."

"Are moose fun?" Audrey walked over, stole a strawberry, crunched the seeds between her molars. 

"Moose are majestic." 

Duke turned his lopsided smile to Nathan, who looked like he hadn't spoken but who was smirking around a mouthful of pancakes. 

"Majestic." 

"Well, Duke, if Nathan says so, it must be true."

"Unlike those parking violations. For my boat. In the harbor."

"Equally true." And Nathan dipped his fingers in the fresh cream and smudged it along Duke's nose. 

And then he looked like he wished he hadn't done it - maybe because he had done it a little too hard, or maybe because he hadn't done it hard enough. 

She took care of them like she took care of everything. Carefully, too fast to be stopped, she licked the cream off Duke's face. 

"Let's go, boys," and she turned smartly towards the door and kept walking, "Can't keep those majestic moose waiting."

*********

Audrey hadn't needed her boots.

She needed a fucking umbrella. 

"Majestic" covered a lot of things - tall, wide, silent, eerie, moose-like. Apparently, it also meant more. 

The moose were flying. 

Flying. 

"Nathan," she shouted as a moose slowly floated by, looking entirely too delighted, "What the hell?!"

Duke was laughing like he had back at the Gull - whole body vibrating with it. Nathan was actually smiling, full on, and looking at her as if he had brought her the moon on a string. 

"Ernie Whelley --"

"Who the hell --"

"Ernie's the moose guy."

"And he's Troubled?"

"Yeah. This is it. This is his thing."

Something fell from the sky and God, she didn't want to know what it was. It was brown. And - generous. She whirled on Duke. 

"You knew about this?"

He couldn't stop laughing. 

"Honestly, Audrey, I didn't. But I'm glad I do now."

He was holding one of his more ragged sweaters over his head and she thought Nathan might have warned him - but it didn't matter, because shit was literally raining down and she had to get out of there. But she was laughing, too, and when she ran for the shed at the corner of the pen they followed her and crowded close. 

It was smelly and undignified. She felt Nathan's chest on her back and Duke's hand against her stomach, protecting her. 

From moose poop. 

"Are the moose going to be okay?"

Nathan wrapped his arm, tentatively, around her waist.

"Yeah, they'll be okay. Ernie's trouble only works when people are here, and then only for half an hour."

"He thought the moose were too boring." And Duke looked anything but bored.

"No," Audrey spoke with that way of understanding Troubles and wanting to help, "I bet he didn't think the moose were boring. I bet he thought the visitors didn't care enough."

"But we care." Duke didn't look at them, either of them. 

"Yeah," Nathan's hand was still around her body and was brushing against the frayed edge of Duke's sweater, "We care."

That night, when Claire came by for therapy, Audrey's fingernails were slightly brown and her hair was damp. They sat at a table inside the Gull, and Duke was scrubbing his hands under the sink at the bar. Nathan, legs curled around the rungs of a barstool, was sipping on a bottle of craft brew. 

"You should pour that in a glass. You're going to taste the bottle cap."

"I like it."

She was too tired to care about Claire. When Claire said "forty days" again, she licked the edge of her beer bottle, put it down, and kept her eyes on her boys. 

"Today was day forty-four," and she walked over, kissed the back of Nathan's neck, "Tomorrow's forty-three."

Duke kept picking at the dirt under his nails, and Nathan was still and tense and somehow pained. Audrey reached over, grabbed Duke's wrist and held him, and with her other hand she touched Nathan's arm.

"I'm going to make the most of them."


	6. 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drowning in water and loneliness.

Blood in the water. 

That's what it had been like, back by Duke's boat when Nathan touched him and the world - shifted. 

This time it was an old man, scared to swim in a chlorinated pool, and it killed him. 

She worked the case. When the ocean surged up at them and filled a car with salt and fish she worked it, and when Bentley died standing up in the shower, water in his lungs, she kept working it. 

Help, help, help. 

Save. 

Love. 

When she saw her own memory of the Colorado Kid she was almost too busy to notice how much he looked like Nathan. 

When Duke nearly drowned she was too busy to kiss him after he spit up half the Atlantic Ocean. 

Day forty-three, and through all of it she could have sworn there was still moose excrement under her fingernails. Nathan was distant and Duke was coughing up water and Claire was irrepressibly pursuing the memories of Lucy and a dead man and an Audrey who used to be. 

Duke slid down the cliff to grab Daphne and when he touched her blood, Audrey thought that she wished it had been hers, that she could have filled any part of him with any substantive part of her. She wanted to see his blue-grey eyes again and soar and damn the sharks, damn the crabs, if she could only touch him. 

When she fell asleep she tasted blood and sea and tattoo ink, and she felt rough skin and curling hair, and she smelled sunshine and drowning. 

The first time she woke up she reached for her boys. 

The second time, she remembered she had to pretend that they were there.


	7. 42, 41, 40, 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The days go too quickly and there is no Justice in her life.

Justice. 

Huh. 

She thought that if there were any justice she wouldn't have to be fucking here, explaining to the emergency techs how an internet fetishist ended up with no eyes. She'd be on the Rouge, fishing, or at the moose museum, or at the Gull, or in her apartment finally in her bed and finally sleeping with no memories but new ones. 

She wouldn't be worried about a bolt gun and its wielder - wouldn't know what a bolt gun even was. If there were any justice she wouldn't have to look at that stupid tat on the stupid man who still leaned into her touch even as he shied away. 

If there were justice, this night with Duke - the night they're waiting up through for a woman in white - would mean something else. He'd touch her. She'd touch him. They'd both be real, and they'd call Nathan. 

And of course that didn't happen, because even as Duke leaned in to her, even as they grew closer and Nathan seemed farther and farther away, Haven was still present in violence and madness. When they smashed the Golem, when that woman was reduced to so much rubble and dust, she wanted to take Duke back upstairs and lie with him in her too-empty bed and only half-pretend, this time. 

But it didn't happen. Of course, of course, she couldn't have what she needed. 

Justice. Justice would be not having to explain to her therapist that there was a man out there building a woman out of spare parts, Claire's perpetually perky face screwed up, just a little, in disgust and pity. 

Justice would be Nathan still smelling like midwinter sun - not smelling like electricity, like pain. 

When Lady Justice stepped back into her painting, she almost ran after her, because maybe being frozen in the wall would stop her, would keep her here, watching over her boys - Nathan upholding the law, Duke cheerfully breaking it. 

Four days out of forty-nine on this case and she had nothing to show for it but missed connections and opportunities lost and the feeling that everything was slipping away. Night thirty-nine, and her apartment was empty and she still had no proof, none, that there was any paltry justice in her life. 

She couldn't even summon them, head nestling in her pillow, eyes dragged down by fatigue. All she could do was listen as Duke cleaned up downstairs and imagine the abraded edges of his skin under her tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously this is four days in one chapter. I did not want to re-tell what the show actually covered. The pace of this episode is very quick, so this section is an impression of what she's feeling as she solves the case rather than a detailed account. Don't worry - next chapter's a doozy.


	8. 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mischief night is the night before Halloween, a night for pranks and immature foolishness. Even Nathan has a little mischief in him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a little liberty with the mechanic's of Nathan's trouble. I think it's worth it.

She couldn't believe that Nathan had made her do this. 

If she had ever doubted that Nathan's fixation on Duke was anything other than childish animosity and a cry for attention, she was sure of it now. 

"Here," Nathan shoved a roll of toilet paper into her hands, "Ammunition."

When Nathan had told her about Mischief Night, he looked entirely disinterested. Back at the station it seemed like everyone was preparing for crank calls and pissed off neighbors - she heard stories of little kids and flaming dog poop, pins stuck in doorbells, and a snickering account of when Vince planted 100 forks in Dave's lawn, totally forgetting it was his lawn too. 

Dave didn't make Mai Tai's for a month. 

She was forced to accept that the evening would hold regular troubles - school kids pulling pranks and innumerable calls into the station from adults who had forgotten that they had made mischief too, when they were young. 

So when Nathan suggested they knock off early, leaving the station in the capable hands of an army of beat cops, she just thought that he didn't want to deal with it. He offered to drive her back to the Gull - her car was, as usual, in the shop after a near calamity - and when he pulled up by the docks instead of at her apartment her stomach flipped with the possibility that something might happen and then sank because God, there was a look on his face of grim determination and he was still shut-off from her and removed. 

That lasted approximately sixty seconds. Then he opened the trunk. 

It was full of toilet paper. 

"What are we doing here, Nathan?"

"Seems pretty obvious," and he grabbed the twelve-pack of tissue, tore it open, and handed her a couple rolls. 

"Are you telling me --" he turned toward the pier, not looking pack, arms full, "-- that you're going to --"

"It's mischief night. The last one with --"

"With me." 

She had to move fast, his long legs inexorably striding towards the Rouge. She caught up with him, shoved his arm with her shoulder. 

"You know I won't remember."

He stopped, and she thought his face looked so angry before it softened. They were close, and as he bent over to speak to her she could see his breath in the air and feel his heat like a wave over her skin of longing and regret. 

"But I will."

Stillness, just for a second, just long enough for her eyes to half-close and her face to tilt up. It was that moment, right before a kiss, when she could almost feel his lips against hers like the charge of ozone before lightning. 

"Now get moving," he broke away from her and was nearly jogging towards the Rouge, "Got to do this before Duke shows up."

Ammunition in hand she raced to keep up, and as she got to the boat, Nathan's arm pulled back with incredible force and a stream of toilet paper unfurled over the Rouge. 

"Come on, Audrey," he didn't look angry now, or grim, just smiling like a little boy, "What are you waiting for?"

Half an hour of TPing, and somewhere in the middle she started laughing. Once she started, Nathan joined in and couldn't stop, and she loved his laugh more than she loved any other sound - loved the way his body opened up to her in a glimpse of passion and light-heartedness that was so rare in Haven. 

She wanted to hold his laugh in her chest. She wanted to kiss him with his voice echoing down her mouth like a prayer. 

Instead, they kept throwing rolls of toilet paper until they were all gone, and she stepped on to the boat and began artfully arranging it in cheerful swags and complicated whorls of white. Nathan came up after her, ducked into the mess, and emerged with a bottle of red. 

"We're just going to stay here?" Nathan slumped down on the couch, and Audrey, face hot and sweating, sat next to him and carelessly slung her arm around his shoulder. 

"Why not?" He uncorked the bottle, maybe realized he had forgotten glasses, and muttered, fuck it, right before he tilted back his head and drank.

"Think he'll mind?" She took the bottle from his hands and took a deep swallow, the corner of her mouth reddened and wet.

"Do you?" 

And he leaned down, without thinking or pausing or even giving half a damn, and kissed the drop of wine on her lips. 

It was everything she remembered from their first kiss - tentative but rough like he thought he might break her but couldn't stop himself because fuck, it had been so long since he felt anything close to this, this friction and sliding and need need need until she was dizzy from his hunger. 

And it was more because they had kissed before and they had gotten better at it, because as hot and impulsive as that first kiss had been they knew that had so much to learn about each other's bodies, the right angles and remembering to breathe. This time, she melted right into him, and they were one body joined at the lips and it was CPR and life-saving and grasping at the straws of thirty-eight days. 

"Wow."

Nathan moved back first, hotly ashamed, disoriented. When Duke boarded the Rouge she closed her eyes because she didn't want to see the look on his face, but maybe she did, if --

She thought he might want to join them and was so scared that he wouldn't. That she had fucked it all up. God, she thought, what the hell is wrong with you?

So when she heard him start to laugh she opened her eyes slowly, warily, waiting for him to hate her. 

Apparently, he didn't. 

He sat down next to her, folded his arms, and looked up at their handiwork, grinning. 

"I have to say, I'm impressed."

"Duke --"

"I've done a fair bit of TPing in my day, and I've got to be honest, this is a work of art. Truly visionary," he took the bottle of wine out of her hands, gesturing, "I can't believe you got Nate to do all this."

"My idea, actually."

"Really," a gulp of wine, a glance at Nathan, "Now I definitely am impressed."

Nathan's body was still taught and tense beside hers, and the thought about that morning before they saw the moose and how there was just as much electricity between her two boys, leaning over pancakes, as there had been in this whole night of toilet paper and kissing. More than ever she felt like the thing between them, glueing them together or keeping them a handspan apart. 

Duke put down the bottle on his low coffee table - and really, could he be more domestic with his furniture and wine and French press? - and casually put his arm around the back of the couch. 

"But really, did you need to come to my boat and do all this, just so you could make out?"

Nathan relaxed back onto the cushions. 

"I think it's cute that you call it 'making out.'"

She really shouldn't have laughed. She'd always been like that - laughing at the worst moments, tension making her shiver uncontrollably and giggle like the girl she never was. But they were both in on the joke, the utter foolishness of the night and the three of them, sitting on a too-small couch, drinking wine out of the same bottle, Duke's arm behind Audrey and Nathan's legs pressed next to her's, dancing around the issue like they were all sixteen and inexperienced and curious. 

Scared. Excited. Nervous. 

And not a little reckless. 

She put her hand on Nathan's thigh. 

Duke tightened his arm around her shoulders. His fingers brushed the back of Nathan's neck. 

"Fuck," Nathan looked like he was ready to jump off the couch, "Crocker, was that you?"

And this time it was Duke who looked hungry, Duke who was vulnerable, whose face moved, slightly, somewhere between a smile and starvation. 

"I though it might work like that."

"We've never gotten this close before," three bodies, she thought, all of us here and tight and needing, "Me touching Nathan, me touching you, all of us."

"More wine," Nathan almost broke the connection, but she knew he couldn't, "I think we need more wine."

"Yeah," Duke didn't move, "I'll go get some."

"In a minute." She was on the edge of this, on the precipice of something big and frightening and something which couldn't be stopped once it started. She was selfish and she wanted them, both of them, together and at the same time and never letting go. 

Thirty-eight days. She kept her right hand on Nathan's thigh, put left other on Duke's. 

"In a minute."


	9. 37 - The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they wake up.

It was on day thirty-seven that she woke up between them and they were really there. 

Some time in the night Duke had moved, just barely, to pull a couple of blankets over them. Audrey, half-asleep, stayed awake long enough to make sure he returned to them, wrapping himself around her with his hand still touching Nathan. When he had gotten up, Nathan, who had dozed off, whimpered in his sleep. 

At sunrise, she opened her eyes first. Nathan had tucked his head under her chin, resting on her breast. He would probably have a crick in his neck, she thought, if he could feel it. His arm was across her stomach. 

Duke had turned in the night so his chest was touching her side, his arm also bound tightly around her torso. Looking down at them, she could see the differences in their skin - Duke's arm on top, his golden tan dark above Nathan's almost blueish pallor. The lengths of their forearms were pressed together and it looked so natural, like it had always been like this - them, one breath away from an embrace. 

She didn't want to wake them, not for anything - coffee, toothpaste, a shower. The sun was just rising and she kissed the tops of their heads, whispering good mornings into their hair. 

Some tension in Duke made her think that he had woken up, and she had the panicked feeling that he might get up and walk away and never come back to them. Instead, he breathed in and said, 

"Is this a trick, or a treat?"

That's right. Halloween. 

Nathan moved his arm, waking up - but he kept in contact with both of them, even holding her more tightly, refusing to lose the sensations of skin and skin and skin. 

Audrey, Duke, Nathan. 

"Treat. Definitely treat."

"This is working out a lot better than I thought it would." She couldn't help smiling. 

Nathan pushed his face against her chest, like a cat scent-marking her with his cheeks, "You thought about this?"

"You didn't?"

"I did," and that was Duke, being honest when she thought he might have tried to hide himself, "I definitely did. Though I didn't think it would be this cold."

It was true - despite the blankets, it was late October and it had gotten chilly in the night. Nathan was Nathan, but she and Duke were shivering and stiff - so when Nathan spoke she was surprised and deeply grateful. 

"We could move someplace --" and he stopped short of finishing his thought.

"More comfortable?"

"Yeah. We could do that."

"Well," Duke stretched, engaging his whole body in a yawn, "The Rouge does have everything. You know, a kitchen. A shower. A bed."

Silence, and she rolled her eyes and jumped in to save them both. 

"How about bed, then showers, then bagels?"

Sleepy-Nathan growling was ridiculously adorable. 

"Pancakes."

"Done. Now shift your ass, Wuornos, Parker. I think I'm loosing feeling in my toes."

"As long as it's just your toes." Audrey almost slapped herself. Nathan, unexpectedly, laughed. 

"Yes ma'am. All other body parts in working order. And I say again, let's go people."

It wasn't quite like she imagined - it took a while for them to fit. She and Duke had to convince Nathan that jeans were not appropriate loungewear, Duke and Nathan kept bumping into each other, and she kept making stupid comments until they tickled her into silence. 

Duke's toes really were freezing. In a sadistic-but-still-friendly move, he wrapped his leg around both of them and nudged Nathan's butt. 

"Now that I can feel you, you're going to keep torturing me, aren't you?"

"Maybe."

"Boys," a warning, "Play nice."

Yeah, it wasn't the way she thought it would go. 

It was better.


	10. 37 - Halloween Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when she sees Jordan.

Fuck. 

There were actually a lot of things she could say fuck about right now - being stuck in an honest to God haunted house, getting a nosebleed from her own memories, watching Claire's cheerleader skirt bounce inappropriately. She could also say fuck about being here at all when what she wanted to do was go back to the Rouge and pick up where they left off - breakfast, laughing, comfort. 

But right this moment, all she could think of was fuck Jordan, fuck Jordan to hell. 

Because she was here, and the look on her face when Nathan touched her was the same look that he had this morning when they were in bed. And she felt a little guilty about that. And more than a little jealous. 

She knew she would fix the house or whatever - at this point, it wasn't just the cases which held her attention but the stuff that kept on hounding her, her memories coming back and seeing the Colorado Kid's face and trying to make it all work in time for her to disappear. 

Because as much as Nathan said he would save her, she knew she would have to go. She'd have to leave them. 

But it would have been so nice to forget that for a while. 

To be Audrey Parker. 

So Jordan was here, Nathan, Duke, Claire, Tommy - ingredients in a big pot of fucked upness. And she figured it out. And whereas she used to believe that she could save every troubled person, this time she was more than happy to put a bullet in this ghost house's brain. 

Mirrors, intercom. Whatever. 

And they blew up the house. 

And at the end of the night, when it was almost morning, really, Nathan left them and she knew, she knew, he was going to follow Jordan. 

Back on the Rouge with a couple fingers of scotch and no clothes and Duke, they held on to each other, both trailing fingers against skin, longing, a little bit, for some numbness and pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't have a happy ending quite yet!


	11. 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when he kisses someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watching this episode (just the last few scenes from Halloween) I was really dubious about the relationship between Jordan and Nathan. This is what happens right before their kiss and right after.

She didn't stay for breakfast. Duke was already up, and he didn't look like he wanted to eat - just grabbed an energy drink from the fridge and started tearing down the all toilet paper. Every muscle in him was tight, tense; every ligament and every bit of skin seemed - 

Unhappy. Unfulfilled. 

She wanted to kiss him but didn't know how. She reached for his hand, let her fingers brush against his palm, and then he turned away and wound more toilet paper in dense balls of frustration. 

At the station, Nathan was closed-off and distant and she couldn't stand it, couldn't bear the thought of how close they had all been - before last night, before Jordan - and how far they seemed now, stopped in the middle of something so important. 

She talked to Claire, printed out the missing persons report for James Cogan. Claire was looking at her with sympathy and so much simpering pity and she just - she had to get out of there, away from Nathan and Claire's surprisingly empathetic eyes and the feeling that everything got so fucked, so fast. She faked a headache and headed back to her apartment. 

Haven could wait for a day. 

She got home, pulled on her ugliest and warmest pajamas, tucked herself into bed, pulled her quilt up to her chin. The sky was impossibly bright and blue over the harbor and she hated it for being so damned pretty when she felt so repulsive. She knew she was feeling sorry for herself, but right that minute, she didn't care. 

Duke must have finished up at the boat because she could hear him downstairs, unpacking crates and liquor and exotic ingredients. Soon there were voices, people coming in for a sandwich or a place to chat, and she thought about going down for a bowl of soup or even a drink but didn't - more out of apathy and inertia than a lack of hunger. 

Duke had music playing - something percussive and wild - and she could almost feel it shaking the floor. 

Jazz. Duke had tried to get her into Free Jazz, and she could tell how much it was like him, scattered and unplanned but coming together in a purposeful symmetry. She thought that, if she could look into Duke, through him, she'd be able to see his blood beat like notes on a page, unrestrained. 

The music must have been really loud, actually, because it wasn't just the floor that was moving but her bed, the springs jumping and thrumming with an intense crescendo of creation and chaos and soul-fucking into the microphone. Her headboard rocked against the wall - and all of this, the vibration, was so small and sparse but she felt like her body was alive to it, had been alive and so awake since they all held each other, since some part of her she thought would always be frozen thawed. 

The movement of the bed, the primal beat of jazz and the sound of glassware - surrounded by it, she felt her hand inch down in the blankets. A quick, easy release - deep in her she knew she ached with almosts, wet and cramping and quivering with the need to finish what they might have started. Maybe it would be simpler if she could take care of it herself. 

Halfway down the elastic of her pajama bottoms, she stopped. 

Imagining them here with her was one thing, but she knew, even though she hated it, that anything else would be a mockery of love. 

Hand still pressed against her abdomen, she closed her eyes and breathed in - early November air, the last traces of Cookie's scent, the feeling of music and the sound of other people somehow managing to be happy. She fell asleep. She wondered if this was what it was going to feel like to leave them all behind. 

She woke up in the dark - movement at the end of the bed. She opened her eyes but didn't need to, because her room smelled like sunshine, pain, numbness. 

Nathan, hand almost touching her through the blankets. 

He look wrecked. 

"I kissed her," and he was staring off, out the window, into the night. 

"Yeah."

"I couldn't feel it," he looked at her and God, she had never seen this before, the desperation and desolation, "She could. And she wanted it, badly, and I --"

All of that anger she had for Jordan last night - the jealously, the selfish possessiveness over her town and her men - it was gone. She felt pity, compassion, and so, so sad. 

"I'm not ready for this."

She didn't know what he meant - but she did, because there were so many things for which they were all hopelessly unprepared, three people in a bed and saying I love you and saying goodbye. Maybe he was just as scared to really feel things as she was to let them go. 

"Stay."

"I --"

"Stay."

He looked so stiff as he crawled next to her, as if he could feel pain and feel old and feel parts of him dying. He put his head on her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair. 

She pretended not to feel his body shake as he cried. 

They slept like that, her in her worn-out pajamas and him in his jeans, her arms around him and his legs tangled up in hers. They woke up in the same position. And somehow, as the sun came up, they were purged, all of that percussion and vibration and loneliness dried in the sun and left in the sand to wash away. 

The world shifted again, and they both knew that this time, they were ready to face it together. 

The thirty-fifth morning.

She kissed the spot on the top of his head where he smelled the sweetest. 

Thirty-four more mornings, after today. 

For as long as I live, she thought, I will never wake up alone again.


	12. 35 - Waking up with Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they talk.

They stayed in bed - maybe a bit longer than was necessary. 

They didn't want to let go. 

At certain points, one of them had to visit the bathroom, and Nathan stood up long enough to strip down to his boxers and tee. He watched her come back to bed. 

"Nice pajamas."

"Shut up, Wuornos."

They could hear the sounds of early morning - birds calling out over the water, somebody opening up the Gull and getting ready for the lunch shift, the whoosh of a few cars driving by. It was so right, just to lie there, sun moving up through the sky and the two of them not wanting to end this morning of promises and short-term commitment. 

But there was a sore spot they hadn't touched last night, and they both knew it. 

"What are we going to do about Duke?" 

They had rolled over so they were facing each other, and it was terribly intimate and terribly right, like interlocking puzzle pieces or the red brick of a crumbling wall. Nathan didn't answer, just used his fingers to trace patterns on her arm, her neck. 

"If you keep doing that, I'm going to get distracted."

"Would that be bad?"

"Normally, no. But you haven't answered my question."

"What do we do about Duke?"

"Yeah," she took his wrist in her hand, kissed his knuckles, and held him still, "He still thinks - you've got that stupid tattoo, and after Halloween --"

"He thinks he can't trust me."

"Can he?" Her voice was small, quiet. She needed to know, needed to make sure that even though he had come to her in the night he was still hers, still theirs, not just a puppet for the guard. 

He was silent - not speaking for so long, and she started to imagine what she would need to do to pull away from him. She wanted to stay here, like this, wrapped up and finally together, but she knew that they were two pieces out of three, out of a whole, without Duke. They had to start believing, start trusting, because soon she wouldn't be here to fix the bitterness of their childhood, let them love each other. 

"I don't know why he thinks I can't be trusted," and they both knew that that was a lie, a lie he had told himself since he showed Duke the tattoo and saw the look of betrayal on his face, "It's Duke. He's the one - how can I believe what he says?"

"He's been honest with us. About his trouble, his dad, everything."

"But that's the Duke you know," he took back his hand, rolled into his back,"You don't know what it was like, before."

"I've heard a little."

Nathan laughed, not like he was happy.

"There are parts of our past that you don't know." A pause, and she had to fill it, keep him talking, nudge him just enough that he could confess everything that had been between her two boys. 

"Tell me."

"I wanted to be his friend," he looked stricken like he knew had said too much but couldn't stop himself, "Damn it, Audrey. He was - he was always cooler than me. And he was good-looking. He got everything and I was just this awkward kid who everyone knew was a freak."

He took a deep breath, the momentum of his words catching up with him. 

"I know he's troubled now. But when we were kids, he was the normal one, and I was just the poor schmuck with tacks in my back. He made an idiot out of me, over and over.

"I hate this. I hate that I loved the way he looked when he saw the guard tattoo, when I finally had the upper hand. But I did, and I still want him, I --"

"You still want him to be your friend."

"Yeah," he looked better now, less tense, and how long had he been keeping this tightly wound inside of him, weighing him down every time he saw Duke? 

"And maybe - maybe more."

Well, that was the big truth. He had gone and said it, and she didn't know whether to be relieved or to worry that once this was all out in the open he would run away again.

"You have to know that Duke feels the same way."

"Does he," he couldn't muster his usual smirk, just turned his head to he was looking her in the eyes, unbroken contact, "Or am I just convenient to him? Is this going to be some big joke? When you leave, will he --"

She had to finish that for him. They had gotten so far.

"He's still going to want you."

"Audrey --"

"Nathan, for a cop, you've always been shit at reading the room." She put her hand on his stomach, driving her point home with touch, and she saw that even now he longed for it, was stilled by it, hoping for more and completely overwhelmed. 

"He looks at you. He makes you pancakes. Do you even know - he hates them." A look of incredulity from Nathan. "When he enters a room you're the first thing he looks for. When you're together there's nothing else in the world for him."

This time it was Audrey who rolled away, stared up at the ceiling and at the wisps of cobwebs in the rafters. 

"You think you can't trust him," he reached for her hand, twined his fingers in hers, "But don't think I don't know that it's always been you and him, and I'm the one who's the convenience. I'm doing what I do, fixing you both up. I'm his excuse. The reason why he can touch you and you can feel it."

"Audrey --"

"It's okay," he touched her face, turned her eyes from the ceiling, and she didn't want to look at him but she couldn't help it, "It's okay. I'm glad I can help.

"But you two have got to work this out. I won't always be here to keep you together."

"You've got a lot wrong, Parker," and he pulled her close so she was curled up under his chin, "It's the three of us in this. All of us. What you're saying about Duke - I guess I can get that. But you, you're more than a convenience."

"But I'm not real, I'm not --"

"You are real. You'll always be real. You're right, you brought us together, and even though I hate him sometimes, I - I know that we're - that we fit. But you're the third thing that makes it all work.

"We, the both of us, we love you."

Fuck, fuck, she didn't want to cry. 

"It's okay, Parker."

"Thirty-five days, damn it, Nathan, only thirty-five."

They were quiet for a while. Her face was damp; she wiped her tears on his shirt. 

"Nice, Audrey."

A short laugh, "Got to give you something to remember me by."

"I think we can do better than that."

She moved her head to that she could look up at him. So many truths, and at least they had gotten a lot of them out, let themselves free from their burdens of not enough time and too many things to say. 

"Let's go find him."

"What are you going to say?" 

"We're men. Don't have to say anything," she smiled, he looked so serious before his face cracked open with a grin, "Might have to punch each other a bit."

How could he make her laugh when there was so little to laugh about?

"Very mature."

"Mmhmm. You could show up in those pajamas. Lighten the mood."

She thwapped his arm, and he winced but looked delighted. Closet hedonist with a touch of masochism. 

She sure knew how to pick 'em. 

"Yeah, yeah. Get your butt out of my bed."

"We're going downstairs?"

She nodded, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

"And pancakes are the most important food of - well, ever." 

"You can be such a stubborn asshole, I'm surprised he doesn't spit in them."

"Ah, but you said he couldn't resist me."

"There's that," ugly pajamas be damned, he had seen the whole show already, and she got up out of bed and winked back at him, "And there's the fact that I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind swapping spit with you. Frequently. In whatever way possible." 

"What an image."

She turned back to the bed, pajama top almost completely unbuttoned, and she climbed on top of him and kissed him, rough and fierce and deep.

"Don't you dare run away from this."

"I won't," his face was soft, dizzy from the feeling of her lips, "I won't."

His hands slid up under her top, along her sides, towards her breasts. She stopped him, didn't want to, knew she had to. 

They had to do this together. 

"Not yet, Nathan," she took his hand and kissed his palm, "Let's go eat breakfast."

"Okay."

She didn't wear her pajamas down to the gull, but she did pull on Duke's shirt. 

"I love you, Audrey."

"Love you too, Wuornos."

Neither of them had ever said that before. 

They meant it.


	13. 35 - Pulling the Trigger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they decide.

Duke took one look at them, coming down from her apartment together. His eyes flashed with something - resignation, maybe, or regret - and then his lips curled up in a smile that was half genuine and half concealment. 

"Took you guys long enough to pull the trigger. Almost everyone in the pool lost money on you two."

"People were betting on us?" It was amazing how Nathan could go from relaxed to pissed off in three seconds flat. 

"Are you surprised?" She sat down at the bar, gestured for Nathan to sit next to her. "I'm pretty sure we're what passes for excitement in this town."

Nathan put his head in his hands. 

"Flying moose weren't enough?"

"Nah," Duke filled two glasses with orange juice, "That's just Haven drama. You two are a fucking romance novel."

"But we didn't even --" and Nathan realized that shouting about his sex life in the town's number one gossip spot was probably a bad idea, "I mean, we just, we --"

Something crossed Duke's face, some flash of emotion - curiosity, relief. 

"Looks like I'm still in the running, then."

And what, exactly, did that mean?

"Who's in charge of the pool?" 

"Oh," sometimes he looked like a kid in the cookie jar, her really did, "Just your friendly neighborhood small business owner."

"Uh-huh," she felt a giggle coming on and stifled it, "And what day did you pick?" It was all so ridiculous, she might as well play along. 

"If I tell you, that would be cheating."

"Since when have you cared --" Surprisingly, Nathan stopped himself. Duke looked nonplussed, Audrey grinned. 

Nathan tried again. 

"You tell us, it's going to give you an edge." 

"Nate! I'm surprised. Very underhanded."

"Take us out to dinner with your winnings and we'll call it even."

The shit really had hit the fan, then. Part of her had been worried that Nathan would backpedal, try to forget everything he had told her in bed. But he looked - adorably determined. Duke's face was careful, and she thought about all of the times he probably wanted to be Nathan's friend, too, but teased him instead. 

This is going to happen. Shit, she thought, he's really going to do it. 

"I'm not going to kill you," Nathan, blurting it out, getting so much over with with one sentence, "But I will hold you to that dinner."

"I... can do that." 

"My boys, burying the hatchet at last."

"You're a good influence on him, Audrey. Guess you need to sleep with him more often."

"That can be arranged," Nathan looked like he had sucked on a lemon, but somehow enjoyed it, "Maybe after that dinner." 

Oh boy, she thought, this was it, and she felt a pleasurable cramp of anticipation. 

"On the Rouge."

And there she went again, laughing out of discomfort or disbelief or plain old immature reaction to a very grown up situation. She couldn't control herself and tried to drown her giggles in her glass of juice. 

It would have been more dignified if it hadn't come out of her nose. 

"Nate. I think you broke Audrey."

Nathan grinned at her, "Nah, she's alright."

None of them had said it out loud, yet, but from the way Nathan was looking at Duke and the way Duke looked like he had been hit over the head by a frying pan were pretty clear indications that this might actually work out. Anger, jealousy, resentment, fear - all gone. 

All finished. 

All fixed. 

She had never been more satisfied. Even though there was orange juice dripping out of her nose. 

"What are you doing today, Croc - ah, Duke?" Friendly Nathan was so cute and helpless, she could explode. 

"I was going to be here for most of it," Duke picked up Nathan's glass of juice, took a sip, "But I'm sure my staff can handle it."

His staff. His staff. She really was twelve years old. 

"'Cause everything's running smoothly at the station," and she hadn't even known he had called in to check, "And I've decided to give us the day off."

"Well, we could go hiking. Bird watching."

She recovered enough to be able to speak without laughing her butt off, "I don't know if bird watching is what I had in mind."

Ah, there it was, the almost audible click of tension that had always been there between the three of them. It was damned powerful and thick like cold butter. 

"I say we play poker. On the Rouge. This time without being robbed."

"Sounds good to me," Duke looked at Nathan one more time, checking, maybe, to see if this was all real, "Nate?"

"Let's do it."

Duke made arrangements for the day - his assistant manager took over, not without a bit of a smirk, she might add. He packed up a couple things from the bar --

"What's in that box?"

"You'll find out."

\-- and they all crowded in Nathan's truck. 

The weather was damned near perfect, brisk without being too cold. They drove along the coast to the docks, saying nothing in particular - pleasantries, small talk, but the words meant something more now that it all was decided, now that all three of them were in this together, on the same page and going in the same direction. They were all on the verge of laughter, quick with smiles and jokes and good-natured teasing. 

It was nice. The nicest day she had - ever. 

Today, she really was Audrey Parker. 

Audrey Parker had a pretty good life.


	14. 35 - Tequila

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they play poker.

Strip poker, she discovered, was really different when it was cold. 

Duke had steered the boat out of the harbor, dropped anchor, and suggested strip poker - more as a joke than anything else, considering the temperature. He hadn't counted on Audrey, who had firmly decided to screw everything and do whatever she wanted, agreeing. 

So, strip poker. On a boat. In November. 

Duke started losing as soon as Nathan took off his shirt, and Nathan started losing when Audrey took off hers. It was cold, but as the sun climbed up to midday it was warm enough that taking off their clothes wasn't entirely unpleasant. 

She looked at them, bodies so different but both so delicious, and thought no, not unpleasant. Not unpleasant at all. 

Even if her nipples were rock-hard and sharp as glass. 

She was usually a crap poker player, but with the two of them drooling all over themselves she had a significant advantage. When she got up to a hundred bucks they were both left in their boxers and she still had her bra, underpants, and socks, plus one of Duke's thick Fisherman's sweaters which she had grabbed twenty minutes into the game. 

Duke threw down his cards, shoved the pot in Audrey's direction, and went over to his mystery box. He took a moment there - probably pretending to debate over what to pull out - and returned with full bottle of something. 

"Tequila?!" The idea that Nathan could still be shocked by Duke, especially today, was just a little hysterical. 

Duke uncorked the bottle of Patrón with his teeth. 

"Hell yes. It's cold out here." He dug out some rocks glasses - how did he manage to have bar supplies everywhere he went? - and poured them all a generous portion. 

"You like tequila, Audrey?"

"I don't know. I don't know if I've ever had it before."

Another one of those silences which meant that they were all thinking the same thing, the utter madness of her life, her ticking clock. 

"Well, now's your opportunity."

They all picked up their glasses - even Nathan - and raised them. 

"What do we toast to?" 

Audrey counted in her head, thought about keeping quiet, but it had to be said, and she wanted to celebrate it. 

"How about, eight hundred and twenty-six?"

"What?" 

Maybe this was maudlin, but it felt right. 

"Hours. Eight hundred and twenty-six hours, until I go."

"Audrey --"

"No," Duke looked at her, understanding it, even accepting it when Nathan still couldn't, "I like it. Eight hundred, twenty-six."

"Some hours for sleeping."

"Some for not sleeping." Duke winked. 

They were getting into it, and Nathan couldn't help but join them. 

"Hours for solving cases."

"For helping people."

"Drinking." Duke tilted his glass.

Audrey smiled, "Watching Nathan dance when he gets drunk."

"Hey --"

"You know you will, Nate."

"Hours for Dave and Vince and their meddling."

Nathan jumped back in, "For Laverne's smoke breaks."

"For flying moose!" Audrey again.

"Fishing." 

"Fucking. If I wasn't clear before." They looked at Duke, laughed, and it was okay. 

"Pancakes." Audrey and Duke rolled their eyes at each other. 

"Eight hundred and twenty-six hours for us to be together."

Duke and Nathan made eye contact as Audrey spoke and her face fell, just a little.

"I'll drink to that," Duke swallowed a little, sucked at the sweet agave taste on his tongue.

"Me too." Nathan raised his glass, took a sip, coughed. 

"Me three," and she drained the whole glass. 

"Now, boys, should I take more of your money, or should we go inside and warm up?"

Duke looked at Nathan, eyes unbelievably intense and hot. Maybe it was the sun, maybe it was three bodies so close, but she could have sworn that the temperature went up another five degrees. 

"Inside," Nathan finished his tequila, "Yeah."

Somehow, in between the deck and the bedroom, they lost all their clothes. Duke's fingers were cold, his mouth was hot; Nathan arched up and over and writhed because Jesus, he needed it so, so badly. They fell down onto the bed in a mass of limbs and body parts and chilled breath. 

"Fuck the pool," Duke muttered as he leaned over to kiss her.

Which was about when they felt the boat start to move.


	15. 35 - Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they can't catch a break.

"No. No. Not again," Duke jumped out of bed, gloriously naked, "Fuck me."

Nathan must not have been paying attention - he looked pretty well stunned - and whimpered, "I'm trying!"

"Nathan," she grabbed his face between her hands, "Something's happening. The boat's moving."

"Jesus."

"I can't believe this is happening again. We are not allowed to play poker anymore."

Duke pulled on a pair of pants and his sweater. Nathan's head cleared enough for him to remember that he had left his gun next to his pile of clothes on the deck.

"Duke. Guns." Audrey grabbed a shirt. 

"Under the mattress."

"Do you hear that?" They both stilled, Nathan listening with his heightened senses. "I hear - singing."

"Singing. I'm being hijacked by a singing bandit. Fantastic."

"No," Nathan, confused, shook his head, "No, it's a lot of singing. A lot of people. They couldn't possibly be on the Rouge."

"What? Fuck, fuck, we're surrounded by singing pirates."

"Guys," she snapped her fingers until they were both looking at her, "Focus. Nathan, you said you hear singing. Could it be coming from the water?"

"Yeah, we're on a boat, so --"

"Coming from in the water. Not on it, in it."

"What do you mean?"

"Nathan - the Glendowers. The mermen, whatever. Could they be out there?"

"Singing," Duke snapped, "A bunch of mermen. Singing."

"Do you have a better explanation?"

"We won't know until we look," Nathan pulled guns from under the bed, "Let's go."

Nathan took point, Audrey and Duke fanning out behind him. There was no one else on the boat, and Nathan slowly looked over the side. Duke followed him and peered down into the water.

"Well, I'll be damned."

Audrey came up behind them, looked down.

"It's the Glendowers, all right."

"Why's my boat moving?"

"Audrey, wasn't there something about the tides? Could they swim here at certain times of day, disturb the water?"

"Even move a boat? Could be."

"Wouldn't be the strangest thing we'd ever seen."

They continued to look down into the water, and gradually, faces turned up to them, not menacing or aggressive, just cheerful. A group of boys - a school? a pod? - actually waved up at them. 

"Well. Okay. Flying moose, mermen - spending time with you two never gets boring."

They looked up at each other, not sure what to say. 

"I don't think I can have sex with a bunch of pre-pubescent boys surrounding us."

They could never. Catch. A break. 

"More poker?" She could almost hear Nathan grinding his teeth. 

"I'm beginning to think that poker on the Rouge is cursed."

"Okay. Uh, hmm." Focus was hard. Very hard. "Something innocuous."

Duke rolled his eyes up to the sky and looked like he was counting to ten. Or maybe one hundred. 

"You guys are going to laugh at me."

"I always laugh at you."

"Thanks, Nate," his shoulders slumped and he sighed, "Audrey, go look in the box."

"Okay," not sure what he was talking about - and what was making him look like a puppy about to be kicked - she opened the box he had brought from the bar, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. 

"Duke, do you have --"

"I was really hoping to get you drunk before this happened."

"-- a board game fetish?"

"What?!"

"I see Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, Mousetrap, wow, haven't seen one that in a while,"

"Duke," Nathan started to smile, "Are you a giant nerd?"

"The insults, Nate. They hurt."

"Scrabble... Scrabble. Yes."

"Scrabble." Nathan's deadpan was legendary, even though he clearly really wanted to laugh.

"Yes, Scrabble. Inside?"

Duke couldn't hide that he was ever so slightly pink. 

They set up the board in the mess, pouring themselves more tequila, licking salt and sucking on limes. Five minutes into the game, they decided to spell out every bad word they knew - 

"Audrey. Very creative."

\- and played for another hour. 

The sun set, and they had nowhere to be, and eventually the singing faded away and they were left gently rocking on the water. The tequila kicked in and they were all yawning and they decided, without speaking, to fall back into bed. 

"Don't think I'm letting you get away that easy, Nate, Audrey," Duke put his hand on Audrey's hip, fingers light on Nathan's thigh, "We still need to finish what we started."

"Tomorrow." Nathan yawned, buried his face in Audrey's hair.

"Yeah, tomorrow."

Her eyes closed, and the swaying of the Rouge and their breath and the warmth under the quilt was so perfect, so transient, and she didn't want to forget. 

But she would. 

There were eight hundred and sixteen hours left. 

She hoped they were all like this one.


	16. 34 - All Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when she can't wait.

There was something very intimate about the three of them crowded around the sink, brushing their teeth. 

She always felt like Duke longed for domesticity - his boat really was a home, and everything from his coffee beans to his glassware to the apron hanging on a hook in the kitchen (deep red, white print, "How merlot can you go?") signaled to her that there was a part of Duke that really wanted to settle down and have a life. Have a family. 

While they were scrubbing and swishing and spitting she looked at the both of them and thought how easily they had become that family - once the initial dancing around the issue had ended, they just slid into each other, into their roles. The fact that there were three of them didn't change the nature of their relationship at all, maybe made it better, because they all had two best friends and two nearly-lovers and two partners. 

A triangle - a stable shape. 

So these domestic acts, tooth brushing, making coffee, doing the crossword, they all made sense. All three of them needed it. 

Sex was still on the table but not quite reached, yet. When Audrey woke up she felt two sets of eyes on her, in front and behind, and maybe they had formed some silent agreement while she slept to wait a little while, just to make sure, just to think about mechanics and protection and how they'd never done anything like it before. 

Threesomes in pornography - and yeah, she had watched a little, who hadn't? - usually fell into a couple of predetermined patterns. A lot of that wouldn't apply here, obviously, because the straight male audience was probably more interested in two sets of breasts rather than two sets of - 

Well. 

And there was the other issue, the more urgent and possibly important one, which was Nathan. She knew he'd fooled around before, but the reality of what was going to happen was, she was certain, going to be very overwhelming for him. 

Drinking coffee, laughing silently to herself, she thought that even this, the most natural thing in the world, was complicated in Haven, and another problem for her to solve. 

But they only had thirty-four more days. 

She didn't want to wait one more. 

Nathan was sitting at the table, filling in boxes of the Times crossword. Occasionally he would lean back in his chair, put down his pencil almost in defeat before smiling a few moments later and picking it up again. 

Duke was at the sink, washing up their glasses from last night. He was humming under his breath, and she could tell he didn't know he was doing it. 

She loved them both so much that she ached. 

As quietly as possible, she put down her mug. 

Nathan leaned back in his seat again, and she took the opportunity to straddle him, legs winding behind the chair.

"Hi." She smiled. 

Nathan moved his hands up her thighs, under her shirt, "Hi."

"How's it going?"

"Pretty well," and his fingers were lifting the shirt over her head. 

"I can tell."

The sounds of water running stopped. Duke turned to face them, crossed his arms, rested against the sink. 

"You coming, Duke?" And Audrey licked a long line on Nathan's neck. 

"Oh, I'll come."

Nathan laughed, breathless, "Crocker, that was awful."

"I apologize, I do. Couldn't help myself."

"If you boys are," her voice hitched as Nathan did something entirely captivating with his hips, "Finished with the witty banter, I think we need to move this along."

"Bed?" Nathan bit her neck and her legs spasmed, violently. 

"Bed."

Duke came up behind her, wound his hand through her hair, pulled back her head and leaned over. 

And kissed Nathan. 

Does everybody feel like that, she wondered - the arousal so intense that you feel ripped in two, every part cramping? She watched them kiss, her body between them, and it was soft and tentative and then bruising and eating and harsh. They pulled apart and Nathan's lips were red and almost chafed. 

"Damn, you guys. Damn." 

Nathan's voice almost didn't work, "Bed. You said bed."

Maybe she was still a little shy, because when she stood up and her back bumped into Duke she flushed, turned, walked resolutely to the bedroom. She knew they would follow her but she suddenly - she didn't know what to do. She stood still, facing the bed, waiting, and she felt that immature laughter start in her stomach and was so close to letting it spill out when two pale hands wrapped around her from behind. 

She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and stopped thinking. 

Nathan, so tall behind her, latching his mouth onto her neck like a teenager, and she felt like a teenager too because this was all new, this was the final frontier, this was Jesus and thank God and fuck fuck fuck and somewhere in the middle of that she realized that she had never done this before. 

The real Audrey Parker had. But she - she hadn't. 

Oh God, and what was that, that feeling, because there were two hands on her breasts and two hands somewhere else, opening her up, pushing and rubbing and wow, how could they have waited this long when all the time it could have been like this?

"That's right, Audrey, you keep going. We'll catch up."

This was so different than the times by herself when she couldn't sleep or was stressed out or -- 

"Audrey," Nathan, in her ear, "Go."

It burst out of her, muscles clenching all at once and then fuck, releasing everything, everything, and she didn't know how she could be this rough with them because she was slapping and her legs were shaking and she scratched red lines on Nathan's arm as Duke kissed her screams back into her mouth and it was all okay. 

"Fuck, Audrey. That was --"

Duke was talking, but they still hadn't actually made it to the bed and they needed to fix that. She pushed him down, fell on top of him, limbs shaking and jumping and damn, she was going to fall completely apart. 

Nathan crawled in next to them.

"Why am I the only one not wearing clothes?"

She could feel Duke's chest under her, rumbling with self-satisfied laughter. 

"Oh, I'll get naked. Shove over, Parker." 

She rolled off of him, snuggled up next to Nathan. Duke lifted his hips, wiggling out of his linen pants. 

"You next, Wuornos."

He didn't want to stop touching her, not for one minute, but he slid his pants down until every part of him was lined up with her. Duke got so close until he was pressed against her front, and they were tight and holding each other and it was perfect. 

"What next?"

"You're the detective, Audrey. Figure it out."

"Right," and she shook her head a little, cleared her throat, thought it through, "Duke, do you have --"

"Yep."

"-- and --"

"Yep."

"Close?" Please, please let them be close.

"Nightstand, top drawer, Nathan's side."

Nathan rolled over to grab everything and she couldn't help it, she started laughing, because her whole body was still shaking and she couldn't believe that this was really going to happen, it was going to work out. She closed her eyes and kept laughing and only stopped when she felt someone opening her legs and -- 

"Fuck, Duke."

And then something behind her, wetness, a little exploration and then --

"Oh Jesus, Audrey, fuck."

She threw her left hand back, wrapped it over her head and around Nathan's neck and clung to him as he bit her. 

Nathan's left arm was around her, fingers bruising her hips with his hunger for touch. 

Duke's right hand was on Nathan's back, pulling them both close and pushing them away, again, again. 

It was like the first morning they spent together - some wrong angles, not quite enough leverage, and so it was gentle and slow and the boat was rocking with them and they were the ocean or a heartbeat or a storm. 

And she was crying.

And they loved her. 

And it was all good.


	17. 34 - Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens after.

Isn't it amazing, she thought, how three people can become one?

Lunch time, and they were still in bed. She thought back over the past few weeks and realized that she had spent quite a lot of her hours in bed with one or both of them. Bed with just Duke was - well, intense was one word for it, as well as physical, burning hot like summer and margaritas and the smell of the ocean at high tide. Bed with just Nathan was playful, emotional, and it wasn't a surprise that a man like Nathan who longed to be touched was deeply moved by it. 

Bed with all three of them? It was - 

Happy. 

Whole. 

Despite his reputation as a sneak, a pirate, and a cheat, Duke really seemed to be invested in his work at the Gull, so when he got out of bed first - 

"Just need to check some details for the dinner rush."

\- she enjoyed the sight of his back as he opened his books and loved seeing the truth of him, that he did everything with commitment and purpose. 

If she had imagined what it was going to be like in the aftermath, it wouldn't have been quite like this. Duke sitting naked at his desk, Nathan half-asleep, and her, sticky and undone. She had thought - maybe they would hold each other for hours, or maybe they would rest a moment and start back up again, new positions and new ways of ripping apart the boundaries of their childhoods and troubles and her time limit and the knowledge that not too long from now, there wouldn't be any more hours like this. 

She wasn't disappointed, though, because as usual, the reality of the three of them together was much, much better than anything she could have imagined. There was vulnerability in their nudity, in Duke letting her see the little details of his life, in Nathan being overwhelmed and finally touched enough that he could drift in and out of sleep, safe with them. 

Nathan rolled over, put his arm around her. 

"Hi," she couldn't help but smile down at him as he snuggled against her. 

"Hi," his eyes were heavy-lidded, lips swollen, and she loved how Nathan looked beautiful and sweet after sex.

But not too innocent, she thought, as his hand found her breasts under the covers and - not so gently - pinched her nipples. 

"I think you have a serious boob fixation," her back arched off the bed, into his hands.

"Boobs feel nice."

"Ah," and his hand was moving lower.

Duke was rustling through papers at his desk, Nathan was doing something mysterious and wonderful with his fingers, she was grabbing at the quilt, trying not to scratch him again. 

And then Duke started laughing. 

"Oh my God, you know who won?"

"Won what?" Audrey caught her breath, Nathan's hand stilled. 

"The pool. The fucking pool."

Nathan looked puzzled, and a little petulant because he clearly had something else on his mind. "Didn't you?" 

"Well, I got the day right. Good work, team. But --"

"But what?" Nathan's fingers started up again, slow circles, then faster. 

"There's another entry for today."

"And?" Let's go, shut up, she thought, because I'm halfway there and I'm fizzing like a warm bottle of champagne. 

"And it's Vince." Duke turned around, saw Audrey's face, lips curling slowly. 

"Won't you split the cash?" How could Nathan keep talking, be so matter-of-fact, when his fingers were doing that?

"Nope. 'Cause he bet... He bet on the three of us."

"Wow. I don't know if that says something about his frighteningly accurate omniscience or about his lurid imagination." Wow that sentence was a doozy. She was amazed that she could string words together at all, what with Nathan moving faster and faster and her hands pulling at the loose threads of the quilt and fuck, it's going to happen again, I'm going to pop like a cork. 

"Both?"

"Definitely both," Nathan kept his hand so steady, impossibly precise and direct and controlled, "Come back to bed, Crocker. You can pay Vince later."

"It does look like I need to catch up."

"Too late," and there it was, the Big Bang, creating a universe with two quick taps of his palm and a look on his face of possessiveness and appreciation and fuck, this was better than pancakes, better than tequila, and she didn't stop shuddering and pulsing with it until Duke flopped back on the mattress and kissed her forehead. 

"It's never too late," Nathan pulled his hand from under the covers, sat up, crawled over to Duke and damn, the look on his face, "Not for us."

And how was it possible that after that, Nathan leaning over Duke and opening his mouth - and Jesus, where did he learn to do that? - would flip her switch again and leave her hungry for more?

This hour, this day, the two of them together, was a revelation. 

Nathan rolled his eyes up, found Duke's, and there was something so raw and honest about this moment when they finally got what they - both of them - had wanted for so long. 

Who knew that just watching could be so hot?

The Rouge was rocking softly, the three of them caught up in water and whispers and moans. 

Lunch could probably wait.


	18. 34 - Too Much Happiness...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they're finally happy.

Lunch, as it turned out, was salad with endive and roasted pecans, warm bread rolls and salted butter, and Perrier. 

She knew she'd made a good choice in loving someone who could cook. 

Nathan was chewing in that slow, careful way, a practiced routine of trying not to bite his tongue. Duke was digging in with fervor, ravenous after round two of what she hoped would be a daily occurrence. They were all sitting at the table, eating, casually touching each other, trying to maintain the connection they'd forged in the past few hours. She saw how her boys bumped elbows and reached for the pepper - freshly ground, of course, from whole red and green peppercorns - at the same time, and Nathan's face clouded occasionally when he remembered he couldn't feel Duke. 

She put her hand on Nathan's thigh under the table. He shot her a grateful look and bumped into Duke again and could feel him. 

Hold on to this, she thought, for as long as possible. 

They were back to small talk again, but it was comfortable and right. Duke was telling them about his new recipes for the Gull, Nathan was saying something about paperwork that needed to be finished at the station, and she was threading herself through the conversation, a part of their lives, the silver thread in their tapestry which bound it all together.

When they had finished their salads, she took the plates to the sink and started washing them, olive oil and balsamic reflected green and blue in the dish soap. Her boys were behind her at the table, still talking, reluctant to move even though they couldn't touch. She heard them laughing, and she thought that of all the troubles she had figured out, all the problems she had fixed, this friendship was what she was most proud of. 

Her greatest accomplishment, love. 

They all pulled on clothes, knowing they had to go their separate ways. Out on the deck, they held close, Audrey as always in the middle and their arms around her and around each other. They kissed the top of her head, and then Nathan moved forward, just a little, so he could kiss Duke. 

"Back tonight?"

"Of course."

It was November third, and the wind off the water was cold, but when they separated she was still warm like she had been filled with hot chocolate or peppermint tea. She and Nathan climbed into his truck and drove to the station; Duke headed to the Gull. 

"I don't know how I can get through this day without people --" Audrey paused.

"Knowing what happened?"

"Yeah. I feel like I'm going to grin like an idiot all day."

Nathan smiled, unreservedly, "Me too, probably."

"God, if we see Vince he'll probably figure it out in a second." 

"Dave will look disapproving."

"Laverne will cackle over the radio."

"Well," and Nathan, uncharacteristically reckless, reached over to hold her hand, "Let her. Let all of them wonder. I don't regret one minute of it."

"Me neither," but it was so good to hear him say it, "I've never been happier."

Nathan looked away from the road and smiled at her. 

And then something crashed into them and Nathan's carefully tended truck flipped over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm such a jerk.


	19. 33 - Dreamscape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when she can't wake up.

She heard a noise - steady beeping, maybe, and she thought that she had left something in the oven for too long. 

Nathan and Duke were in her bed, in her apartment above the Gull - but no, that wasn't right, or something was wrong, because Nathan's face was bleeding and then Duke wasn't in bed, he was sitting in the corner, crying. 

What had she been cooking? It smelled - well, it smelled awful. It smelled like copper and alcohol. The oven kept beeping and Duke was so upset and Nathan was bleeding and she thought, I'm coming, I'm coming, even as she was frozen in place, unable to move. 

And Nathan's face stopped bleeding but he was bandaged up and he was saying no, not yet, don't go, and there was a woman there with him in black who held her hand out to him and he didn't look at her and she walked away. 

More people came - two old men, one tall and sad and remote and the other clutching at his hat, and he called her Sarah and tried to kiss her and God, why did that hurt? 

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

And then there was another woman, skinny, fingers stained and breath like burning, and her voice was rough as she said hon and sweetheart. 

And then she was pushing, pushing, and a wet thing squalled out of her and why, why was she doing this, was that her baby? 

I've never even been pregnant, she thought. How strange. 

Then she was by the water, and there was a dead man, and a little boy looked up at her and he had her necklace in his hand and she said, remember this. 

She was in her bed over the Gull again, Duke and Nathan next to her, and people kept wandering in and out and they could see her, see the three of them, all curled up together with not enough room and crying. 

Don't let this be the end of us, Duke whispered. Come back, Parker. 

I'm coming, she shouted, but her lips wouldn't move, and that beeping kept going, unending. 

The door to her apartment opened, cold light streaming in at her, and at first she thought she saw James Cogan, then a blonde woman with patchwork skin, then the dark, tall figure of Agent Howard. 

Hi, she said, and he looked at her and her boys and didn't seem surprised. 

Agent Parker, and his voice was deep, far away, you need to wake up. 

I'm so tired, she said, so tired.

I know, and he reached down to her and there was affection in his face, a gentleness she'd never seen before - but you still have thirty-three days. You have work to do.

You need to get up. Now!

The beeping was getting louder. Something was pulling at the back of her mind, a feeling like falling or being on a roller coaster or wheels spinning out over rocks. 

Oh, right, like it was the most natural thing in the world, I was in the truck. 

And she opened her eyes, even though she hadn't known they were closed. 

They really were next to her, the three of them cramped in a narrow bed, a heart monitor clipped to her finger, beeping. 

"Hi, guys," and two heads lifted, turned, "What'd I miss?"


	20. 33 - Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when they're angry.

Her body hurt, they were all crowded in the bed, and she didn't expect it but it was still true -

They were mad. Really, really mad. 

"Don't you ever do that again," Duke was almost yelling at her, and his face looked like breaking, "Damn it, Audrey."

Nathan was silent, touching her lightly and trying not to grab her, making sure she was real. It was so like them - Duke reacting before he could think, before he could realize that none of this was her fault, and Nathan, not talking, scared half to death and terribly angry. 

"Duke," she had to clear her throat, "Duke. Stop yelling at me. I don't even know - what happened?"

"You were in a fucking car crash, that's what happened!" 

"Nathan - you're okay?"

He laughed, and it was an ugly sound, "Yeah, I'm fine. Couldn't even feel it."

"Tough guy, huh?"

"Don't even - don't even joke about it," he sat up, swung those long legs over and onto the floor, "I thought you were --"

"I'm not going to leave you guys," and she tried to smile, to sit up, and it hurt, "Not yet, anyway."

"Fuck, Audrey," Duke put his hand across his eyes, "Please don't - just let us --"

"Pretend?"

Nathan stood up, fast, like he had been slapped. 

"I can't do this."

"Nathan --"

"No. This, I can't lose you." 

He was serious, and for the first time since she woke up, she was scared.

"Once is enough. You wouldn't wake up. And I --" 

The room was quiet, except for the beeping of the heart monitor. 

"How long was I out?"

Duke looked at her, she couldn't read his face.

"A day."

"Only a day? One day?"

And Nathan was laughing again, still harsh and hateful. 

"One day," and he whirled back towards the bed, "You say that like it's nothing. One day out of anyone else's life? That is nothing. But one day out of the thirty-three that you have left - fuck, Audrey."

"We thought you might not wake up."

They were quiet, sharing in the grief, their premature mourning, and there was so little she could do about it from here in the hospital bed. She needed to get home - her apartment or the Rouge - and try to fix this, their sadness. 

She did a quick check, wiggled toes, clenched her fingers. Everything seemed fine, if sore.

"Why was I knocked out? I seem okay. Bruised, but okay."

"You hit your head, Audrey. And you should have been fine, but the doctors couldn't wake you."

"Oh," and she thought about what had happened when she was asleep, the memories which were coming back, Agent Howard. 

"Oh," Nathan sat down, body heavy, on the chair in the corner, "That's all you have to say. Oh."

"Nathan," and she would have been pissed off by his tone if he hadn't looked so pitiful, shaken, desolate, "I'm okay. I'm here. We still have time."

"Not enough."

And then Duke, "Not nearly enough."

"But there's nothing I can do about that," she had to ask, didn't want to know the answer, "Do you want to - do you want to stop --"

For a second - which stretched out in her head, a long pause of everything crashing down around her because of something she couldn't control, damn it - they didn't say anything. 

It was Nathan who spoke first.

"I want to stop you from leaving. But I don't want --"

"What we have," Duke kissed her temple, "We're not going to stop."

And once they had said it, the tension broke in the room, Nathan coming back to sit with them, his chest shaking from crying, his mouth shut and twisted around the sounds everyone makes when their heart is breaking. She moved her hand so she could reach him and rubbed circles on his lower back. 

Duke just looked haunted by it, getting better but still hollowed out, vulnerable. 

She was in bed, bruised, banged up, and all she wanted to do was comfort them. 

"It's okay, guys. We are okay." 

They must have been exhausted, because they both settled back in next to her despite the lack of space on the bed. 

"Did Vince and Dave show up? And Laverne?"

"Yeah."

"And Jordan," Nathan shot Duke a dark look, "She should know, Nathan. How many people came, in one day."

"I thought - when I was out, I think I saw all of them." She ran through everything that she had seen, felt, "Saw a lot of other stuff too."

"You want to tell us?"

"Not yet. I think - I need time," she remembered the feeling of giving birth, didn't know what to make of it, put it in a little box of, figure it out later.

"Were you guys in bed with me? Almost all day?"

Two heads nodded against her.

"What did people think of that?"

Duke shrugged, "There was a distinct lack of surprise, from all parties involved."

"I bet Vince wants his winnings now."

"We didn't discuss it." She wanted her Nathan back, the playful Nathan, but right now she had a Nathan who was scared and bitter. 

"Who hit us, Nathan? What happened?"

"Delivery guy. He'd been driving all night, fell asleep at the wheel."

She'd expected something a little more complicated - some trouble, something. 

"That's surprisingly normal."

"I know," Duke moved his arm so he was touching them both, "Normal, and stupid."

"He's okay?"

"He's fine."

"Even after Nate here nearly ripped his head off."

A few minutes of quiet, just breathing together, relearning and memorizing the curves and corners each other's bodies after - after it all could have ended. After it might have been just the two of them. 

It was good, but it was a little uncomfortable. 

"Guys, I do love snuggling with you," but she was really stiff, and she wanted her clothes, "But I'd like to go home, now."

"Home?" They were both very, very still, and even now they were careful, had doubts.

"Yes, home - wherever you're going to be," she thought about that for a second, "My apartment would be good. Clothes, coffee, my toothbrush."

"Sounds good. Don't know how the Gull's doing today."

She felt Nathan smile against her shoulder.

"You can show Duke those sexy pajamas."

"Ha, ha," she slugged him weakly on his arm, then thought about how comfy they were, "Yeah, actually, that sounds good."

They had brought her a loose pair of pants, sports bra, and tee, and once she stood up she realized she really was sore - sore enough that they had to help her pull her bra over her head -

"I feel so sexy right now."

"Damn right."

\- but they got everything on the right parts, signed her out of the hospital, helped her into Duke's truck.

"Nathan, oh no, is your truck --"

"In the shop, it's going to be fine."

Getting up the stairs to her apartment was even more of a challenge, and once they got to the top she was ready to get back in bed and sleep. The sun was setting, anyway, and she knew that sleeping was the best thing she could do to heal. They slipped off her pants, gave her a couple of pills that the doctor had prescribed, tucked her in. 

"Aren't you going to stay?" How could she be so worn out after being unconscious for twenty-four hours?

Nathan didn't say anything, just pulled the covers down on his side of the bed - and huh, they did have sides, didn't they - and slipped under the sheet.

"I've got to go do my job, Officer Parker," Duke kissed her, softly, and kissed Nathan too, "But I'm right downstairs. I'll be back up around two."

"Okay," she turned her back to Nathan, grabbing his hand and tucking it next to her breast, "Don't go too far."

"I'll never leave you guys, you know that." Duke opened her French doors, stepped out, locked them behind him.

But I'll leave you, she thought. 

Nathan was breathing into her hair, and she was tired and the pills were already working and she counted down his breaths, starting at forty-nine.

She fell asleep as she reached thirty-two. 

She dreamt, and all through the night she heard a baby, crying.


	21. 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens with Elmer Fudd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized (after a word count/quick math) that I would reach 69 pages during this chapter. Couldn't let that milestone slide by...

She woke up to the smell of coffee and the sound of -

Wait, was that -

Wagner? 

She rolled onto her back, stretched from her neck down to her toes, trying to assess what hurt. Peering under the covers, she saw a few bruises and scrapes, but as they had told her last night her body was mostly fine - there was just something wrong with her head. 

Ha, she thought, I already knew that. 

As the opera coming from her living room continued, she entertained the thought that something really was going screwy with her head. She considered closing her eyes and giving up on the day, but the smell of coffee - and she could tell, it was Duke's favorite blend, dark and rich - was already working on her, waking her up and dragging her sore body out of bed. 

She never could resist a good cup of Java. 

She slung her legs over the side of the bed, pushed up - Jesus, that hurt - and stumbled out to the kitchen. 

"Hi," Duke smiled at her, spoke softly, "Coffee?"

"Mmhmm," he handed her a cup - real cream, a drizzle of caramel - and she breathed in the warm steam rising from the top, "What's that music?"

He grinned, "Ah, that. I think you should go see for yourself."

He gestured towards the living room, spatula in hand - oh, good, more pancakes - and she walked into the living room. 

And found Nathan, who was snickering under his breath. 

Watching cartoons. 

"Wow, Nathan," and even though she was sore, she leaned over and kissed the crown of his head, "Bugs Bunny. Very mature."

"I have hidden depths," he hugged her with one arm, eyes still glued to the screen, "Especially when it comes to Wagner."

"You're watching this for the music?"

"Mm."

"Don't let him fool you," Duke came in with plates and flatware, "He just likes seeing Bugs dressed up as a Valkyrie."

Audrey slumped down on the couch, cradling her cup of coffee, "Does this mean I need to get that gold bikini?"

"No objections here."

Nathan was really a big kid. Duke must have brought over a makeshift pair of pajamas, because Nathan was snuggled up in fuzzy drawstring pants and a tee shirt ("Kiss the cook"), drinking coffee, giggling in an adorable way, his nose wrinkled up with pleasure. 

As usual, she thought, the three of them were so natural together - Duke with his pile of pancakes, Nathan relaxed in these few moments of domesticity, her not caring that she probably looked a mess and felt like one, too. It was -

Comfortable. 

She had thought there would be some fallout, after last night at the hospital when Nathan nearly said that he couldn't handle this situation, the three of them staving off loneliness before she left. She had expected some brooding from Nathan, some level of deceit from Duke, so good at hiding things. 

It was true, though - none of this was ever what she expected. Maybe that was what made it all so exciting. Not knowing what they would do, being pleasantly surprised by their intensity and gentleness with her, just finally finding some sense of permanence in the every day, when she knew that her time with them was short and diffuse. 

Duke came in with a stack of pancakes. 

"Duke," Nathan, who had torn his eyes from the screen as soon as he smelled maple and butter, "Why are my pancakes... brown?"

"Buckwheat, Wuornos."

Nathan didn't look convinced - maybe even a bit dismayed. 

"No complaining," Duke turned back to the kitchen, emerged with a few bagels and a tray of lox and cream cheese, "I'm the cook, so you'll take what you can get."

"Hmm," and carefully, like he thought the pancakes would revolt against him in a blaze of buckwheat rebellion, Nathan took a bite, "Not bad."

Duke smiled, self-satisfied.

"I guess." And Nathan grinned even as Duke punched him on the shoulder, "Can't feel it, didn't happen."

Duke rolled his eyes and handed Audrey a plate and a toasted salt bagel. They sat together, chewing, laughing as Elmer Fudd chased after Bugs, not talking and not needing to. 

They finished up and the cartoon came to an end. Duke gathered the dishes, Audrey followed him into the kitchen. As he stood at the sink, preparing to clean up, she was suddenly overwhelmed by how normal this all seemed, how casual their morning had been, how she had been able to forget, with the Wagner and the coffee and the smell of pancakes, that this life they had forged together was transient, impermanent. 

It hurt more than her bruises, more than when she banged her head as the car flipped and time stopped and she, dreaming, pushed out a child. 

Duke tensed, at first, when she wrapped herself around him from behind. She was holding onto him too tightly. 

"I don't want this to end."

He relaxed into her, "Yeah."

"This is - I don't want to go."

"I know," and that was Nathan, coming up behind them, wrapping himself around her and around Duke, "I know."

They stood there, three of them melded into one thing, one living organism of hands and feet and lungs and hearts and terrible sadness. 

Duke turned in her arms, kissed her, slowly. 

But slowly - it wasn't good enough. 

She pressed her mouth, hard, against his, fingers scrabbling against his clothes. Nathan at her back started lifting her shirt, and she paused for just a second so he could pull it over her head. 

Next came her sports bra, Nathan's tee, Duke's pants. She ached, all of this contact hurt, she didn't want to end it but she was making small pain sounds at the back of her throat. 

"Audrey," and that was Duke, pulling away, "Are you up for this?"

"Please," she was begging, whimpering, not wanting to waste one more moment, "Please."

Nathan and Duke looked at each other, considering. 

"No, don't you dare stop. I won't break," She turned from them, went into the bedroom, "Come here."

She was fragile like fine china, like lead crystal, like antique furniture and the caramelized crust of a soufflé - and it didn't matter, because they were following her and they were all naked and she needed them. They both crawled onto the bed, hands held out to her in tandem. 

Taking both of their hands in hers, she knelt on the mattress, lay down between them. Nathan shifted so that he was almost on top of her, and she couldn't help it, she cried out with his weight. 

"Damn it, damn it!"

"It's okay, Audrey," Duke ran his hand down her arm, looked at Nathan, "We'll figure it out."

"On top," and Nathan was on his back, "Lie on top. No - put your head --"

And this, this was another thing she could add to her list of I've-never-done-this, and holy fuck, his mouth was moving on her like kissing. She bent her neck so her mouth was on him, too, and it was another moment when she felt like more than one person, more than a single body, because they were so close and God, this was good. 

Duke was next to them, watching. She pulled back so she could see him, ask if he was okay, and he just shook his head at her, mouthing, "You go," and she couldn't quite believe it but he looked so - 

Happy. 

And then Nathan was doing something new, lips sucking, and God, she felt swollen against his mouth and teeth, blood rushing down from her head to that part of her which only they had ever seen, ever touched, and she filled her mouth with him too and they were rocking against each other, his hands on her back and her arms beside his legs, fingers digging into the mattress so hard that she thought she might rip it, tear into all of it, fill the room with padding and springs. 

Parts of her body - her ribs against his stomach, a throbbing in her head - still hurt. But she was so full and couldn't stop and the pain was just another part of it, upping the intensity, making her swallow and lick and moan around him desperately. 

And he bit her, lightly, and that was it, she was done, and she shook against him and writhed and might have scratched his thighs except for Duke, who grabbed her arms and held her when she fell down the rabbit hole of almost seeing stars. 

And he said, my turn, and lifted her up, placed her head on the pillows, and settled between Nathan's legs. 

How was it that they could be so comfortable, with coffee and breakfast foods and cartoons, and still unspool each other in frayed threads of making love?

After, when they were all finished and panting and sweating, they did what they always did, and held each other - Audrey in the middle, Nathan on the left, Duke on the right. She was still bruised, parts of her sore and other parts raw with friction and cresting and feeling like each time with them was another goodbye. 

"You okay, Audrey?" Duke held her hand, traced circles with his thumbs. 

"Yeah," and at least the wetness on her face was mostly perspiration, hiding her tears, "Definitely okay."

"Love you," and Duke's mouth tilted up, just one corner, "Love you too, Wuornos."

Quiet. 

Then Nathan snored. 

And then they both laughed - at first, just muffled shakes of their chests, then giggling, then full out laughter until Nathan opened his eyes, hugged her tighter.

"What's so funny?"

"Eh, nothing," Duke found Nathan's hand around Audrey, tangled his fingers in Nathan's. 

Three of them, together in the bed, on the thirty-second day, and she only had one month and then she'd be gone and wouldn't remember what it felt like to be warm and safe and loved. 

"Nothing at all."


	22. 31, 30 - Game of Life

It was strange - for once, Haven was quiet. Calm. 

It seemed like ages ago that anything strange had happened, in fact. And it didn't look like anything was going to happen soon, either, just the regular daily stuff, Vince and Dave churning out papers which reported nothing more exciting than the weight of this year's prize-winning butternut squash and their weekly advice column. 

That, penned by the mysterious Mrs. Edith (who, obviously, was Dave, indulging in his prurient love of gossip), was usually worth a raised eyebrow or two, but Haven - all of it - seemed to be in a period of peace. 

It felt like summer vacation, or what she imagined summer vacation would be. It was November but unseasonably warm, only substantially cooling off in the evening, and it wasn't uncommon for families and lovers to head down to the beach and play in the sand. 

Odd, sure, but nice. 

It was - it was just normal. 

The three of them settled into patterns of familiarity and routine - she and Nathan worked their shifts at the station, Duke ran the gull, sometimes they slept on the Rouge and sometimes, when Duke tended bar, he'd crawl next to them in Audrey's bed at two in the morning. 

They never spent one day without talking, touching, and they always ate breakfast together and watched cartoons. 

Duke got them to play The Game of Life, and they all tried to cram three partners - one wife, two husbands - in their little car tokens. When it was Audrey's turn to spin for kids, a boy or girl, she placed the tiny blue figure in her car and felt - something. 

An echo of a memory of a dream. 

Time was stretching out, and it really was a grace period, a fugue state, when they could imagine or pretend that this was what the rest of their lives would be like. 

No one was surprised when they walked down the street together, holding hands. Maybe everyone pitied them because they had so little time, or maybe - she really hoped - the citizens of Haven just liked watching them smile. 

The way they paused to kiss, the moments when Duke slugged Nathan's shoulder and he ignored it, sharing ice cream cones, watching sunsets - all of it was a bright spot of happiness in the drama which was unfolding, the Greek tragedy of trying to avert fate and failing. 

God, she loved them.

Duke came up with recipes, the weirder the better, mango-habanero margaritas, waterfowl stuffed with pomegranate and bitter chocolate, venison marinated in cola and red wine, oysters served in a shot glass with beer and sun dried tomato pesto and horseradish. 

Nathan ate it all without complaining. 

Well, maybe a little complaining. 

Audrey found new ways to say I love you with her body and her tongue, the three of them together and being torn apart somewhere deep, somewhere untouchable. Duke and Nathan - she could see them heal each other, heal all of the childhood hates and regrets and longings, so when Nathan said he was ready and Duke held him and pushed it was the look on their faces of forgiveness and completion which sent her over the edge, spiraling. 

And when they sat on the deck of the Rouge under the Indian summer sun and didn't say the words but felt full of their love for each other and Nathan joked that she shouldn't have shot the town's only priest -

They all knew what he meant.


	23. 29, 28 - Birthdays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when he wears tails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse. This is just fluff.

On days twenty-nine and twenty-eight, they all took off work, Duke handing over control of the Gull and Nathan and Audrey delegating their paperwork. 

Duke had told them to take some time off, and at this point they knew to trust him - and since Haven was still calm, their days uneventful, they gladly handed off the case files which needed to be catalogued and shelved and met him on the boat. 

Which was covered, yet again, in toilet paper. 

This time, the tissue was dyed, bright splashes of blue and orange, and it was everywhere like streamers or confetti at a child's birthday party. Woven between the toilet paper were white and gold fairy lights - tiny bulbs incandescent in the setting sun. 

"Wow," Nathan, monosyllabic as usual, and then, "This is fantastic."

She didn't know what to make of it. It was beautiful. 

It was also going to be a bitch to take down. 

They stepped up on the Rouge, Duke's beloved boat which usually looked a bit shabby, to say the least. Tonight, though, there was a table set out with white linen, cloth napkins folded on three plates, blue and white china from the Gull, wine glasses and champagne flutes and silver. 

Beautiful, refined, totally out of place. 

"Happy birthday, Audrey."

She turned - Duke had come out of the mess, and her lips parted, just a little, because he was wearing an honest to God tuxedo. 

With tails. 

He was probably the most ridiculous person she knew. 

"It's not my birthday," and she hadn't meant to sound rude, or so dismissive.

"I know," and Duke looked a little like he hoped she would like it, like he was happy and sad all at once, "But, since we don't really know when that is --"

"You're throwing me a party."

"Yeah."

"Just us?" That was Nathan, still looking at Duke's decorations and smiling.

"Just us."

"Duke --" she walked over to him, fast, fast enough that her eyes didn't blur until her head was on his shoulder and his arms came around her, "Fuck, Duke."

"Hey now, no tears tonight, okay?" He kissed her head, tilted her chin up.

"It's all good. Now both of you, get inside. I have something for you."

Something turned out to be a tuxedo for Nathan and a black, silk dress for her - thin straps and lace like spider silk, fabric a swirling weight at her ankles. They both got dressed, Nathan making his fair share of snarky comments and Audrey kissing him until he shut up. 

"Get your asses up here," Duke shouted from the deck and they pulled apart, laughing, "I slaved all day. Really. I did."

They came back out, dressed up and maybe a little uncomfortable, but Duke had lit all the candles on the table and the food smelled incredible and there he was, smiling. 

Remember this, she thought. 

And then - then there was champagne, caviar; there was roasted parsnip soup with shallot cream and French bread; a salad of mesclun and prawn and berries; a filet which was still bloody and melted in her mouth, Parmesan-truffle roasted turnips; and through all of this there was wine and free jazz through the speakers of the Rouge and the toilet paper was turquoise and red clay through the glow of the tiny lights. 

And they danced, and it was perfect even though there were three of them - it was twirling and tipsy and they kissed and Duke tried to spin Nathan into a dip and Nathan kicked him in the shins. 

They were too full and a bit too drunk to have sex that night, and as they climbed into bed they could summon nothing more than a quick kiss and a few I love you's. 

Remember this. 

When they woke up on the twenty-eighth morning, they stayed in bed all day.


	24. 27, 26 - Ephemera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when he crafts.

Huh. It really did bring out the colors. 

Nathan's long, tapered fingers were softly clutching a paintbrush. Duke had gone downstairs to check on the Gull, and they were both still in pajamas. She was warming her fingers on a mug of coffee, and he was completely focused, still, using tiny movements in his wrists and making images bleed. 

When he brought over a set of photographs and a tin of paste, she - if she was totally honest - gave him a lot of shit. It was his fault - he'd hidden them at the bottom of his bag, under pjs and boxers and rolled-up socks - and when she asked him if she could help him unpack, he was too busy being thoroughly Frenched by Duke to stop her. 

So maybe it wasn't totally his fault. 

Anyway, after a couple quips and some apologetic kisses, he set up his decoupage tools at her dining room table. He gave each slip of paper his complete attention, fingers so soft against the images. 

When she first learned about his love for glue and color she didn't know him, didn't understand how heightened his other senses were when he was so accustomed to being unable to feel. Now that he had touch so often, she wondered if things would change, if it would be less pleasurable somehow - but he looked the way he did when he solved a case and when he watched Bugs Bunny and when he took Duke into him, eyes rolled back, zeroed in and zoned out. 

And yeah, the colors? They were gorgeous. 

This morning he had pulled out a picture of the two of them - and maybe Vince or Dave had taken it, because they looked like they were solving a case. Very intent, but satisfied, happy. 

"Where're you going to put that?"

"I think I'll put in on my desk," and in the way that he had of knowing, unerringly, what she was thinking, he said, "A lot of people at the station put up pictures of their families." 

She smiled down in her coffee, didn't say anything and didn't need to, because he was off again, delicately painting a layer of paste over their faces. 

She could hear the usual noises downstairs, glassware, tables being set up, chairs lifted and scraping against the floor. She saw a bit of fluff on the edge of her socks, reached down, and -

Oh, Cookie. 

Twenty-seven strands. 

She stood up, leaned over Nathan, and placed her coffee on the table -

"Careful!"

\- and then kissed his neck, right behind his ear. 

"Will it mess you up if you take a break?"

God, he was so obvious, with his whole body tilted up into her mouth.

"I, um, I think it'll be okay." 

No making it to the bedroom, this time, only to her couch where she sat astride him and he held her hips and moved her, slowly, controlled, until she buried her face in his shoulder and made sounds of pleading and desperation. 

Every time with him was the end of the world, a meteor or the sun going nova or the death of a child, right on the precipice of too painful to survive. 

And then they sat there, still intertwined, and kissed each other's necks. They were both sticky, bits of glue on her breasts and his fingers, and she thought that this was the perfect place to be stuck, and, if only they could be glued together forever. 

Nathan spent most of the rest of the day with his paintbrushes and that picture of them, intent and relaxed and occasionally ducking into the kitchen for a coffee. 

Audrey pored over her files - the original picture of the Colorado Kid, of her, of Duke; the missing persons report on James Cogan, who looked familiar but strange to her; maps and star charts and old articles from Vince and Dave. 

She knew - she knew what she had to do. Where she had to go. As she lifted her eyes from her files, looked at Nathan so content over his unlikely and totally endearing hobby, she wondered if a few days of distance would feel like a little jagged edge of death, a loss of precious hours, a betrayal of this time they had spent together trying to make a family, trying to lie. 

Trying to forget the ultimate truth - an expiration date on happiness. 

Duke popped up from the Gull, and when he saw Nathan he looked like he wanted to tease him - and then he saw the picture, just her and Nathan, and smiled one of his sad, mocking smiles. 

"Nice, Nate."

"Thanks."

She thought she should buy a camera, buy them a basket full of cheap disposables, click through a spool of film until it finished and then start up again. They should have more pictures, an album of all of them, a fireplace mantle crowded with silver frames and Nathan and Duke who in less than a month would only have each other. Duke was smiling but it was so obvious, how badly he wanted to fit in the shot, how much he needed a family which wasn't consumed by murder and glowing eyes. 

How much, even though he loved both of them, he wanted Nathan. Wanted to be with him, even after she was gone. 

These were all they would have left of her, these carefully glued and mounted photographs, just frozen moments of their fleeting happiness - something to hang Christmas stockings under. And maybe that was all right, as long as they stayed together and didn't crack or split or explode with loss. 

She remembered that she wouldn't be here for Christmas, but still thought that she should go shopping for them, anyway. 

Cameras, pictures, gifts - ephemera of a life which couldn't last. 

On day twenty-six she drove over to Bangor - "be right back," she told Nathan, who was inevitably caught up in editing the station's paperwork - and spent almost all of her paycheck on them: sweets, scarves, cashmere gloves, essential oils, exotic balsamic vinegars, and two stockings filled almost to the brim with Kodak disposables. 

Please, please, she thought as she cruised back into town, watching the sun set over the harbor - please, don't let me break them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rewatching season one, I was reminded of Nathan's decoupage habit. It was such a lovely detail and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to connect it with the picture on Nathan's desk in season four.


	25. 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when she tries to solve a problem.

She knew she had a problem. 

Well, maybe a couple problems. 

Nathan wanted to save her - was still convinced that somehow, even with so little time left, he'd be able to find an answer. She would be heading out to Colorado in a few days and he had so much hope bound up in that, so much faith that everything would work out - but how could one trip, she thought, be any different than every other lead they had chased down, each journal or photograph or secret memory?

Informative. But useless. 

The second problem, of course, was Duke. He was so good at pretending, and when Nathan turned his guileless and raw eyes to her it was Duke who knew how to smile, to comfort, to hide. He was holding back just enough of himself that he would have something left when she was gone, and she thought about how scared and frustrated he might be when, in twenty-five days, Nathan would look at him and think he wasn't enough. 

This past week and more she had been wiring her will in their bodies, in moments when she could help them hold each other, connecting electric pulses in a desire to touch and be touched. They need to remember this, she thought, as the three of them were in bed and Duke and Nathan were holding hands. She needed to put in place a system by which they would remain whole and close and in love. 

This, she thought, is my last will and testament. All my worldly goods and all of my love I leave to you, my boys. 

But now, on the morning of the twenty-fifth day, she knew she had one more problem to solve, one last magnum opus of fixing and healing and making right. 

She bumped into that problem - who shied away from her, terrified and mad - outside the coffee shop. 

"You."

"Hi, Jordan," and slowly, surely, she reached out and touched the exposed skin of Jordan's arm, "I think we should talk."

"Oh, my," Jordan pulled her arms away and looked at her with such fury and spite and loneliness, "Maybe we should."

 

*********

 

Her eyes were like a horse's eyes, wide and white, showing fear. 

They had gone to the beach, and even though it was cold there was something right about it, the two of them in an empty space of sea-whispers and moans. They'd both brought coffees, and Jordan - with a quick laugh which was more like a sob - had taken off her gloves to warm her fingers on the paper cup. 

"When did you figure out you could touch me?"

Audrey held her cup with one hand, drew squiggles and circles in the sand with the other, "When I touched Nathan --"

"Ah," Jordan picked up a shard of sea glass and hurled it into the water, "Nathan."

God, she thought, how can I be so good with the troubles and be so damned insensitive?

"Yeah, well --"

"I'd rather not hear all the details."

"No, I --"

"It's obvious that you're happy together. You two and Duke. You didn't have to bring me here to rub it in my face."

"Jordan," and how had Nathan gotten any traction with her when all she was was prickly and stubborn, "Stop."

They were silent. The waves at low tide were gentle against the sand, the sky was the pale blue of winter, the air was clear and bright with the glimmer of the sun and too much to say. 

"This town was here before you, you know."

Jordan's voice was bitter but plain, telling an old story which everyone knew and no one knew how to edit.

"Yeah, you come here like clockwork, every twenty-seven years. But those years without you? They're good years. When the troubles aren't here things are, they really can be good - just a small town, too much snow in the winter, gossip and kids and people living. And you'd think that you would have some respect for that."

"Jordan, I --"

"Don't you care about what will happen when you're gone? Don't you care that we - that we will have our chance again to be normal for a while, to be happy? You fuck around with us, gathering people, collecting trophies of connection and admiration and damned near obsession --"

"Hey now --"

"And you're pretty good at helping when you're here, but when you're gone people have to live with the hole you've made in their lives."

"You think I don't know that, that I --"

"Why'd you have to take Nathan, Audrey?" Jordan stood up and walked down to the edge of the water, drinking her coffee as if to silent herself, knowing she would keep talking until it was all out and done and she was empty, purged, "God, I sound like a child, I know I --"

"I didn't take him, Jordan," and she came up behind her, looked out over the water, "He's not a thing. He's doing what he wants to do."

"You think that makes it easier for me? That I lost? That you're better?"

"It's not about that."

"What is it about, then?" And Jordan turned to her, angry, her face wet, "Why is he with you, when all you can give him is, is --"

"Pain?"

"Oh, God!" Jordan sat back down in the sand, heavy, curling in on herself in one of her startling moments of vulnerability, "Fuck! Fuck you, Audrey, damn it --"

Audrey settled into the sand next to her and, without taking a moment to doubt herself, wrapped her in her arms and held on as she cried.

"I hate you. I need to hate you."

"Go ahead," and she wasn't sure if she was talking about the hatred or the tears, "It's okay."

"I don't want you to be nice to me."

Audrey laughed, "Well, that's just one more trouble you're going to have to deal with."

Jordan's fingers were still exposed, out of her gloves, and Audrey felt her touching her wrists, tentatively, lingering in a rare moment of contact. 

"You have to leave, Audrey. When it's your time, I need you to go. We all do."

"Yeah," Audrey pulled away, just a little still keeping her left arm around Jordan, "Nathan thinks we can stop it."

"You can't."

"That's the thing," and she finally moved away completely, missing the look of loss on Jordan's face, "I know that."

She put her head in her hands, coffee stuck into the sand and steaming. 

"I don't want to do it. I don't want to disappear. But, I'm not stupid, it's clear to almost everyone that I'm supposed to. I'm using this time I have left trying to --"

"Fix things. Are you trying to fix me, now?" Jordan looked like she didn't want help, wouldn't ask, was desperate for it.

"Sort of, maybe," Audrey looked up, out across the water, didn't want to see whatever pity or resentment Jordan had to offer, "You said that I don't care about what happens after I'm gone. That's not true. Not at all. 

"It all seems so close, now, so urgent - you, me, Nathan, Duke, everything. But in a year I will be gone, really gone, and you'll still be here and you'll need each other. It matters to me that you guys learn how to hold on."

"You want us to be happy? Even me?"

"Yeah."

"Damn, Audrey," and then Jordan laughed and it sounded a little more like being in on the joke, rather than choking on glass, "You have a serious Messiah complex."

For a moment, she wanted to be angry - Jordan had gotten to have her freak out, her big catharsis, and still, she was trying to hold it all together and do what she was meant to do - help. 

But she joined in the laughter instead. 

"Yeah, guess so."

"Audrey," Jordan reached out, captured her hand, gripped just a little too hard, "Promise me. Promise me that you will leave." 

"Nathan's not going to stop trying to keep me here."

"Promise."

Audrey looked down at her hand, skin white around Jordan's fingers. She trailed her gaze up, past the fingers to her arm, her chest, her face, so intent and panicked and determined.

"You promise that you'll take care of them when I'm gone, and then yeah," she looked back towards the town, her home on a twenty-seven year loop, her cage, "I'll go."

They sat there, holding hands like high school sweethearts, until the water came at them at high tide and they ran back to her car, slightly damp and feeling lighter. 

"I feel like we should get manicures or something."

Jordan looked at her, serious.

"We're not friends, Audrey."

"Nah, I know," Audrey pulled onto the road, checking her mirrors and looking at Jordan through the corner of her eye, "Beer, then?"

"If I say no?"

"You going to?"

"Mm," Jordan turned her face to the window, but Audrey thought she saw the slight - and quickly banished - hint of a smile, "I was getting thirsty anyway."

Back at her apartment, Audrey snuck down and grabbed a six pack of a local IPA and they sat in front of her fireplace, drinking. Nathan called to ask for something and Jordan's eyes were sharp, waiting.

"No, it's okay, Nathan," and Audrey smiled over at Jordan who relaxed, just a little, into the cushions, "Just following up on some things. Don't need to come over. Talk later." She hung up, raised her beer and waited for Jordan to toast with her.

"Twenty-seven years."

"To twenty-seven."

They clinked bottles. 

Day twenty-five, and maybe she had done something right, because even when Jordan got up to leave, still distant and prickly and brusque, she felt that she had made a connection, something which would last after her end - something which would be enriched by it. 

Someone in this story should have a happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after last week's episode, I absolutely had to write this chapter. We saw so much more vulnerability in Jordan which I think plays into the idea that she felt she had a pact with Audrey, a deal by which Audrey would go away and fix things but which was broken. Anyway, I will miss Kate Kelton! Keeping her alive in fic!


	26. 24 - Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when she pulls away.

The hardest part was watching their faces when she started pulling away. 

She wondered if she really could do it - if she could distance herself without her heart breaking. Because some part of her hoped that they would notice, that they would figure it out and tell her not yet, we have time, don't go. 

But the look on their faces? 

They didn't know. 

They were terribly, irrevocably wrapped up in each other. 

She thought back to one of the first times they were all happy together - Duke and Nathan, close over a plate of pancakes, laughing, then Audrey coming down and all of them going to the moose museum. That day, with moose shit raining down, had been about the three of them, but that morning when she could barely drag herself out of bed they had sat together over breakfast and had been happy. 

She was, as ever, the bridge between them, the reason they took the leap, the tool for touch. 

Yes, they loved her - and they really did, they threw themselves into the tragic love story which was like cancer and a handful of days and trying to say goodbye. They had their lives, their routines, cartoons and cases, pancakes and parking tickets, fishing, fucking. It was that triangle, that stable shape, when the three of them were curled up in bed and they laughed and kissed and held on and opened her up and spilled themselves over. 

But maybe - maybe they knew, had finally begun to admit to themselves, that twenty-four days from now they would be alone together, two points on a line, the two loops of infinity. 

So when she stepped out of bed to give them a few moments together, and when she spent hours alone so that they could go fishing, and when she would find them in the kitchen, casually touching as if they both could feel it, it was a good thing and horribly heartrending. 

Isn't this what you wanted, she thought? Isn't this what you've been planning all along?

She continued to make little changes in their lives - she decided to spend more time with Jordan, who still didn't seem to like her, and that casual apathy was so refreshing because at least then she wasn't needed, wasn't depended upon. She gave Jordan a few glimpses of what it would be like when the troubles were gone, sure - against all previous impossibility, Jordan actually asked for a manicure - but Jordan's continued unfriendliness was a benediction, a blessing, a relationship unburdened by love. 

She had already known that Jordan would rejoice when she left. 

Seeing Duke and Nathan slowly prepare for her absence - seeing them turn towards each other so soon - that was hard. Compared to that, Jordan's intermittent and grudging affection was a relief. 

She wondered if it would always have ended that way - Nathan and Duke together.

She wondered if she had come to Haven just to fix them.

Her boys. 

On the evening of the twenty-fourth day they got in bed together, as usual, but Audrey slipped in on Nathan's left side. 

"What are you doing?"

"My turn to be the big spoon."

She held on to Nathan's back, willing herself to stay, forcing this connection between the two of them without her in the middle. Nathan put his head on Duke's shoulder, and Duke kissed his head. 

"Love you." 

She didn't know who Nathan had meant. 

Both of them fell asleep like that, Nathan the little spoon, Duke on his back, their hands clasped. And she - she couldn't sleep. She was cold. 

She crept out of bed, quietly enough not to wake them, and dug out the Christmas presents she had bought in Bangor. She had a few rolls of paper, some tape, and she wrapped them silently. Scarves, gloves, oils, vinegars, and in two small boxes she placed the custom stocking hangers, "Nathan," and "Duke." 

Tomorrow she'd be off to Colorado to unearth the last details of her mystery, her identity. She knew she should sleep, but she stayed there at her table, long after she had placed the presents back in their hiding place, and watched the sun rise. 

Twenty-three more days - days of love and distance, of forging the unlikely friendship with Jordan, of denying herself this last comfort, the three of them together. 

Six in the morning and she finally stood up, stiff and melancholy and resigned. She prepared Duke's special coffee in the French press, poured a little cream in a pitcher, took out the sugar bowl, placed it all on a tray to bring to them in bed. 

She looked at them, in bed, asleep and unaware of everything from her gaze to her impending departure. 

They were still holding hands.


	27. 23 - Martyr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when she faces symbolism.

Getting on the plane was like stuffing herself into a flying sardine tin, screwed up and sealed in and lying that the gaping mouth of the sky couldn't consume her. But liftoff?

Liftoff always felt like sex. 

It was a big fuck you to gravity, the laws which kept her bound to the earth, the chains of her destiny. There was the horrible drag of trying to push through the air, the ground sucking up at the plane in longing for one last lonely embrace - but after that was the incredible moment when the plane really pulled away, a bounce or a click of success as the wind and engine and hot fuel propelled them up towards the sky. 

It was an orgasm, unstoppable, precarious, and overwhelming. 

Sitting next to Duke, she thought about how easy it would be for the airplane to plummet back towards the barren ground, frosted over with the coming of winter. And maybe - just for one second, she considered it - it would be easier if they fell, if plane and people were reunited with the dust and ash of humanity. 

She wouldn't have to face Nathan, who was angry that he had to stay in Haven and search for answers while she took Duke away. 

She wouldn't have to face Duke, her companion on this last tilt at windmills, who was smiling at her and joking but who was haunted, hungry. 

But she enjoyed - she truly loved - the way her stomach flipped in an approximation of the pain of a teenage crush, the clench of her heart in heartbreak, the shudders of pleasure, which was this sardine can hurtling through the sky. 

Colorado. 

She didn't know what she would find, hoped she would discover something about herself and who she really was, knew that even if she did, it probably wouldn't help. Her promise to Jordan - she took it seriously. If she had to disappear at least then, then they could all be okay. Jordan could love, Nathan could feel, Duke could escape his father's curse. 

She would give this love story a happy ending. She could turn this Socratic drama from tragedy to something good, a play of contentment and finality and completion. 

Landing in Colorado, finding the guard's symbol etched into a post, she thought about how all of life was a complex pattern of symbols and double meanings - how she, herself, was a symbol, an avatar, her personality a gilded icon of a fallen martyr. Over and over, she danced through Haven with the same face but with different names - she was not so much a person but the funnel, the vessel, the cup filled with destiny and inevitability. They had searched for the meaning of the guard symbol - and they were searching for her meaning, the Audrey symbol and the Lucy and the Sarah. 

The quilt at the motel smelled of cigarettes and sex, and it was dirty with a thousand memories of other people coming together between rough white sheets. It was almost beautiful in its foulness. She thought about going out and picking up a pack of Marlboro Reds or Camel 100s - surely, whatever kept her body preserved over twenty-seven years would ensure her continued good health - but she knew that if she were to indulge in the self-flagellation of smoking she should do it brilliantly, the way she did everything, with the ephemeral exhalations of tobacco coming from Duke's imported cigars. A glass of Johnny Walker Blue, a hand-rolled Cuban, an evening of nepenthe on the Rouge. 

Crawling into bed with Duke, she huddled in his arms, clutching at twenty-three days in which to do everything she hadn't done before. Tomorrow, they'd go to the nursing home and confront what might be the last piece of the jigsaw of her life. But for tonight, she thought, let me hold on to this - the handful of days which are Audrey Parker. 

The symbol. The avatar. 

The little girl who wanted her family - finally found, finally embraced - to last forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the timeline I am using (Haven Maine Wiki for 2010 plus what I've observed from the show) the Colorado trip takes several days in order to account for that which occurs back in Haven. I am not going to re-tell everything which happens in Magic Hour 1&2, rather I will be painting a picture of what is going on in Audrey's head. I hope you enjoy!


End file.
